


somewhere a clock is ticking

by bryndentully



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Character Study, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Moral Dilemmas, Plotty, Slow Burn, Temporary Character Death, Time Shenanigans, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Triwizard Tournament
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 60,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22122709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bryndentully/pseuds/bryndentully
Summary: "Potter is on his way," the doe sneers in Severus Snape's voice, flooding Fleur's office with light and sound and a danger like she's never known before. "The Dark Lord has lured him into a trap. Hurry, Miss Delacour. You do not have much time."After the disastrous fight in the Department of Mysteries, Fleur and Hermione steal a faulty Time-Turner and unwittingly jump back to the days of the Triwizard Tournament, changing the course of the Second Wizarding War before it can truly begin.
Relationships: Fleur Delacour/Hermione Granger
Comments: 182
Kudos: 836





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Super_ nervous posting this fic. I've never written anything for HP before. Hopefully it will suffice!

_Gringotts_ , Fleur decides after the Tournament ends. Prying old flyer from Hogsmeade free from the confines of her trunk, she stows it safely away in her robes. She will go for a job at Gringotts, she will improve her second language, and she will try to recover from her ordeal. _Their_ ordeal.

(Perhaps Fleur will for once be taken _seriously_ with the bank's insignia on her lapels...)

Her failure to win the Cup will fade away before long, she hopes. A youthful error in a soon-to-come history of successes. A footnote. The Delacours enjoy an illustrious reputation in France's magical circles. Fleur does not want her ineptitude to sully it or Beauxbatons again. _La honte!_

The world's turned on its head overnight, though. A friend died. A Dark wizard—the most frightening one of all—returned to life. Fleur does not need her grandmother's veela blood to sense the change in the air, but the awareness creeps into her brain anyway and fills the crevices in the stonework of Hogwarts with a new... _malevolence_. If Amortentia hints at your innermost desires, the stench of war flips over your stomach.

Her stomach hasn't felt normal since the Third Task began. Cedric's stillness, Fleur recalls, made the world grind to a halt, too. Her disappointment over losing the Cup seems best left behind in girlhood and the accompanying naiveté, but...Fleur doesn't feel quite so naive anymore, not really. She just feels lost. Perhaps a job will give Fleur a stronger sense of direction than a flyer induced whim. "Pointe moi," she murmurs to herself, giving the castle a final look. She will not miss the decorations, the drafts, the food, or even that infernal poltergeist. The students, on the other hand, are a different story. Sighing, Fleur turns away from the smiling poster of Cedric Diggory, locates her sister, and strides toward the carriage.

All musings flee from her mind, however, as Professor Dumbledore himself approaches Fleur before her departure, still in his mourning robes.

"A moment, Miss Delacour, if you please," the headmaster greets, peering at her over his half-moon spectacles. His French is flawless.

Too astonished to do anything but comply, she turns to Gabrielle, heels clacking together like the hands of a clock. "Run along, Gaby," Fleur says in English, nudging her sister as the girl dawdles, eager as all children are to be in on a secret. In the corner of her eye, the headmaster looks amused.

"Laisse nous," she coaxes. Gaby pouts. Wanting to impress Dumbledore, Fleur returns to English. "Tell Madame Maxime zat I will join you shortly."

She spies Harry, Ron, and Hermione on one of the lawns, also dallying. With any luck, she can say her goodbyes before the trio boards the train.

On their stroll across the grounds, Dumbledore inquires into her health. Fleur takes a minute to consider the circumstances. She has the privilege of speaking with one of the greatest wizards of all time and instead of a clever spell or words of wisdom, he offers her an arm and a patient ear.

"I was...I was only Stunned, 'eadmaster," she lies. _The least injured and the lowest scorer_. How shameful, Fleur cannot help but think.

Dumbledore is not deceived. It was he who freed her from the living, hungry brambles. "Grief takes many tolls. Fear sups greedily, too."

"Cedric was a good wizard," Fleur deflects, averting her eyes. "I will not forget him eezily, sir. _Easily_ ," she corrects, self conscious, and retrieves a few rocks from the shore of the Black Lake. As undignified as she will seem, Fleur can't resist an opportunity to anger the herd of grindylows.

Dumbledore watches the first of her stones hop, hop, hop, before he speaks again. The ripples lure the giant squid to the surface, curious as a cat.

"I have need of you, Miss Delacour, now that your studies are complete."

Fleur wonders if she heard right. "Professor?"

"Our Minister will not see reason," Dumbledore admits as the second rock skips further than the first and then sinks into the water. Seemingly affronted, the squid retreats. Cradling the last stone in her hands, she listens. Fleur prided herself on being of age when the Goblet spat out her name, but recent events made her feel so...young. Too young to rationalize what happened, but Fleur _heard_ Harry. She attended the Leaving Feast and gave the headmaster's speech her undivided attention. Cedric's death was _not_ an accident. "Soon, the Ministry will fall under his influence."

"The 'ole Ministry?" Fleur asks, aghast. _Après cela, l'inondation_. "Zat is disgraceful!"

"That is fear. Fear can drive good people to do terrible things. Willful ignorance," says Dumbledore, "is an agent of evil."

 _That is not the kind of good I want to be_. She throws the last rock with all her might. They watch the voyage. With a cast of the wandless magic she never got a chance to use during the Tournament, a whirlpool of her own creation swallows the stone. _That is not the kind of good I want to do_.

Perhaps the rumors are true. Perhaps, among other things, Albus Dumbledore _can_ read minds, for his eyes are twinkling, and he is smiling again.

"There is a need for a person like you, Fleur. If you will allow me to explain, Madame Maxime will not be kept waiting long..."

* * *

In the end, Fleur receives one job offer (from the Ministry) and one call to arms (from the Order of the Phoenix) and accepts both gladly.

"Are you sure about this, darling?" Apolline asks, studying what she can see of the room from the fireplace. It is, Fleur will confess, as cramped as the broom closet that Rita Skeeter pushed every champion into for interviews. In the August heat, she's grateful for the lack of a formal dress code.

 _August_. Fleur has an entire month of employment under her belt. It doesn't make her feel any older, though.

"Of course," she answers, summoning an interdepartmental memo from its perch in the doorway. Lazily, it sails into her waiting hand.

"I simply worry—" Moments like these make Fleur wonder if the Gringotts job would've fared any better with her mother.

"I'll be fine, Maman," Fleur interrupts, unraveling the memo. _Mafalda Hopkirk requests a meeting for the following morning..._ "I am not alone."

Literally she is, but only just. She doesn't need to share her office space with anyone as her neighbors are near enough to call on if she so desires. The Office for the Removal of Curses, Jinxes, and Hexes has one supervisor and a pair of Curse-Breakers. A vacancy kept Adrian Bell and Leslie Chang busy for as long as either one could remember, until Fleur filled the open spot almost as soon as her graduation ceremony concluded.

On Fleur's last day in France, there was no room for grief, only joy.

Flushed with pride, Céline congratulated Fleur on her appointment. Giselle promised to write from her own post in the French Ministry. Hugo was skeptical. Edgar teased about her new love of the British. Madame Maxime slipped a vial of Felix Felicis into her pocket and winked. Gabrielle wept at the thought of their parting and pleaded with Fleur to visit often. Her father was delighted ( _merveilleux_ , he exclaimed, kissing her on both cheeks). Her mother was cautious. Her grandmother was more reserved, but supportive. As sorry as Fleur was to say goodbye to her friends and family, her excitement couldn't be contained. There was noble work to be done here, even in her dingy, hemmed in office. Her tour guide, Arthur Weasley, chuckled at the sight of it, commiserating. William chimed in, too, from one Curse-Breaker to another. _There is nowhere to go but up_...

Up is the aim, Fleur knows. The Order's gained Aurors and professors and tinkerers, all keen to stave off You-Know-Who's rise to power. Instead, Fleur hopes, the power of good will rise to every department in the Ministry, until all believe the truth and stand united against the growing threat.

That day is not today. On her desk, the _Prophet_ splays a photograph of the headmaster below an accusation— _DUMBLEDORE: DAFT OR DANGEROUS?_

"Fleur!"

Startled, Fleur's attention bounces back to Apolline. By the expression on her face, she's been speaking all along. Fleur winces.

Her mother heaves a sigh, forcing sparks onto the hearth. They already argued once before over the Order's mission; Fleur has no wish to repeat it.

"I simply _worry_ about what's to come," Apolline repeats, troubled. "Mallièvre is as quiet as usual, but there are _rumors_ , Fleur. Whispers of _them_ in the mountains." Fleur doesn't know if 'them' means giants or Death Eaters, but she's nevertheless filled with foreboding, just as Apolline intended. In the First Wizarding War, Fleur's grandfather did not escape the Snydes, and left Fleur's grandmother a widow, despite all efforts. _The veela love so deeply_ , Fleur thinks, sadly. Without Apolline, maybe her grandmother would've willingly wandered into Massif Central and never returned.

Or not, Fleur muses, remembering her grandmother's affection for her and Gaby. A veela's affinity for _any_ love can surpass heartbreak, in time.

"I am protected," is all she says. Great Britain has Dumbledore and Harry Potter, despite their beleaguered reputations and failing public opinion, as well as dozens of wizards willing to lay down their lives so they may save the world. What else can Fleur do but join her strength to theirs and _fight?_

"You are too arrogant, darling," Apolline grumbles, her disappointment making the flames crackle and hiss. "That will be the end of you, I swear it."

"Perhaps it runs in the family," Fleur declares, and then douses her mother's indignation and the Floo connection with an unsaid _Aguamenti_.

* * *

From August to June of the next year, Fleur does almost nothing but work.

Thanks to the upswing of disappearances and rumblings of You-Know-Who's forces, most of the divisions within the Ministry are collaborating. 

She trails after Aurors like Kingsley and Tonks when their arrests are finished, tasked with examining the crime scenes for Dark magic. She joins Arthur on his house raids, wand at the ready and keenly focused. She finds more and more curses by the day, attuned to the innate wrongness that even talented wizards can overlook. The scent of ill will. A Muggle-born and a voracious reader, Adrian delightedly starts to call her 'Hawkeye'.

"It's a comic book," he insists, barreling on despite Fleur and Leslie's bemusement, "about an archer than never misses."

"This 'awkeye uses a _bow_ , not a wand?"

The ancient veela fought with bows, arrows, and quivers and Fleur's been trained accordingly, but the appeal—beyond utility—is lost on her.

Muffling a suspicious cough, Leslie stands to fetch the kettle.

"It's a Muggle story from America," Adrian explains, patiently. "He never misses a shot and fights crime with the Avengers. Aliens, too."

"Zat does not sound like a good story." It makes _Loony Nonby_ look like real literature!

"He sounds busier than we are," says Leslie, refilling the tea with a sly little look. Fleur laughs.

"This is just your payback, madam," Fleur's partner says, pointedly lifting his lion-emblazoned cup, "because Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw last week."

 _My Katie_ , Adrian often announces, brandishing letters from his daughter, week after week. Leslie's girl writes regularly, too.

"Cho can only do so much!" Leslie retorts, just as pointedly rearranging the Ravenclaw pennant that sits atop her desk. "The Chasers lagged..."

As eager as Fleur is to do her part, bickering over Hogwarts matters is not a tempting prospect. Gathering up her paperwork, Fleur excuses herself and makes for the lifts, a flock of memos fluttering ahead to accompany her down the corridor. Haunting the lifts, amazingly, was Mundungus Fletcher's idea. ( _Hear alotta of things in a lift, I do_ , he mumbled during an Order meeting, after delivering a report. _Find alotta things, too._ ) When she can, Fleur takes to listening to the other employees of the Ministry as they go about their business, eavesdropping for news or emerging judgments of the shadow war (or, in the least, the mysterious occurrences that Fudge allows to escape his notice) that is building to a boiling point.

"Did you see, Basil?"

Royden Poke shows Basil the newest edition of the _Prophet_. On the front page, a shifty looking Harry Potter ducks into a pub in Hogsmeade, with Ron and Hermione at his heels. The photograph-Ron flips a rude gesture, while the likeness of Hermione marches haughtily on. Fleur smirks.

"What's he up to now?" Basil Harington asks, disinterested. A friend of Mr. Weasley's, Fleur seems to recall, and a potential ally.

"Running Dolores ragged," says Royden with a chortle, easing back to let a pair of witches into the lift. Wedged into the corner by the influx of boarding and departing employees, Fleur is all ears. Subterfuge works best when Fleur is not immediately seen by those vulnerable to the thrall.

"Dolores is _working?"_ One of the witches asks with a snort. Her friend make a shushing noise, looking concerned. Anxious.

Dumbledore's star is falling. Umbridge's is rising. The _Prophet_ favors her in its own slavish way, and paints Harry as badly as Sirius. Fudge's regard for Umbridge, though, casts a weight over the Ministry, making its people more afraid of his wrath than the idea that You-Know-Who himself is back. Less than a year out of school, Fleur observes, darkly amused, and the Order of the Phoenix has made her into something of a spy.

Spycraft's becoming necessary when the Minister demands resignations from anyone with a mere acquaintanceship with Dumbledore, she reflects. His behavior makes Fleur curious about Giselle's place in the French Ministry. If Harry grew up in the Pyrenees and attended Beauxbatons, would the circumstances be the same? Would Nadine Dumont treat him as poorly as Fudge does? Would her own _Ministère_ rub his name in the mud?

In the noisy, forever bustling Atrium, Fleur's lunch date Apparates in and joins her at the fountain.

"Bonjour, madame," Bill greets, sporting the usual smile and dragon fang earring.

"Bill," Fleur chides, stowing her paperwork into her bag, "I want to eemprove..." Her time with Bill always allows for a _lot_ of English practice.

"Don't be cross! I know. But _I'm_ learning French, see," he says, leading the way out. The Leaky Cauldron awaited. "Edgar wrote me yesterday."

"Il a fait?" Fleur demands, brightening at the thought of her friends, old and new, getting as close as can be. "Please, I must 'ear all about it!"

She and Bill part ways in the afternoon, with promises to meet again over the weekend. Fleur hurries back to her office, lest she want the in-tray to overflow again. After a year at the Ministry, Fleur's used to working long hours and doesn't expect to see daylight until Friday night at the earliest.

As the newest employee in her division, she's often saddled with the reports and the clerical work. As one of the junior members in the Order, she got most of the night shifts in the Department of Mysteries. Tonks, too. Sheer happenstance let Arthur get guard duty on the night of his attack.

Fleur shakes her head. If it was _her_ against that horrible serpent, she knows it would have gone better. She once subdued a dragon, after all.

Collecting the papers of her latest case into a file, Fleur tucks the folder into one of the overfilling cabinets, then stops to check the time. It's late, she realizes, more tired than she anticipated. Much later than she intended to stay. Fleur tidies up her desk quickly, thinking eagerly of her flat, until a week-old, unanswered letter catches her eye. _Céline_ , she thinks, feeling guilty. Fleur never meant to get behind on her correspondence, but such is her life nowadays. At Beauxbatons, she saw her friends every day in her lessons; after more than a year in England and never not harried, she has only managed one get-together with the old crowd, and a handful over the holidays with her family, to Gabrielle's growing displeasure.

Will Madam Chang give her any time off? Fleur doesn't know. She's never asked for a personal day, preferring to press on and make a good impression among the seasoned staff of the Ministry. Maybe she can drop in and surprise Gaby at school. _She'd like that._ Fleur zips up her jacket, considering. She misses France more than she'd prefer to admit. A break would do her good...and she'd see her parents outside of a fireplace...

Scratching a reply to a devastated Céline, who writes of Myron Wagtail's publicized engagement, Fleur doesn't notice the Patronus until it speaks. "Potter is on his way," the doe sneers in Severus Snape's voice, flooding Fleur's office with light and sound and a danger like she's never known before. She gasps, crushing her quill in her fingers. "The Dark Lord has lured him into a trap. Hurry, Miss Delacour. You do not have much time."

Grabbing her wand, Fleur dashes right through the silvery apparition and sprints for the stairs, the echoes of Snape's words at her heels.

* * *

_Protecting the prophecy, Dumbledore warned last July, was critical. It was also a risk_.

_"Lord Voldemort," the headmaster had explained, politely ignoring the room's discomfort, "does not know the complete prophecy. Fifteen years ago, a Death Eater heard enough of it to report back to his master, and so doing set the course in which Harry must walk. This prophecy is the key."_

_"The key to what?" Molly Weasley asked, fearfully voicing the words that no one else dared to ask. Next to Fleur, Bill drew in a breath._

_"To the end of him." Dumbledore surveyed the group gathered in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, then continued. "Lord Voldemort cannot hope to gain access to the Department of Mysteries, not while our warnings fall upon the Ministry's deaf ears. He will send others in his place. Do not expect quarter from these agents, for he will punish the unsuccessful and make those still left in his circle rue the day they joined his cause."_

_No one spoke. The headmaster went on, graver than a gargoyle._

_"This is not a duty to be taken lightly," Dumbledore added, reminding Fleur of his words about the Triwizard Tournament. This time, the circumstances were far more dire and even more dangerous. "Should one of Voldemort's supporters appear, you stand alone until help arrives."_

_This was the man that Madame Maxime wanted to prove was just a man, Fleur remembered. All she could see now, though, was a_ just _man_.

* * *

Skipping the slow moving lifts in favor of the staircases, Fleur keeps a steady pace in the descent. She's made a home of Level 2, but the Department of Mysteries lies deeply below on Level 9. Her body knows where to go better than she does (Fleur feels as if she left her brain behind in her office). To her dismay, the fear and panic and dread are in lockstep with her, staying as close as her next breath, and the next, and the next.

_Kingsley isn't due for his shift until one..._

The route is familiar, however, allowing Fleur to ignore the details that she gazed at only months before, like the bluish torchlight, the black-tiled walls, and the windowless alcoves. During her nights of endless filing, Fleur wandered around the Hall of Prophecy, wand aloft and silent as the Grey Lady of Ravenclaw. Pacing down every row, it was Fleur who was the ghost. The hall is not so much a hall but a _cathedral_ , which stretches wider and longer than the Notre Dame itself, and sits to hold the hundreds if not thousands of copies of prophecies about the wizarding world. Too short to see Harry's properly, she did at one point manage to find an orb bearing the name of another student of Beauxbatons: Nicholas Flamel.

Hurrying into the Entrance Chamber, Fleur spots a line of fiery Xs in front of a few of the doors. Smart magic, she judges, as the walls begin to rotate and the blue light gleams from beneath the twelve handleless doors. The crosses stay put, giving her a slight indication of where to go.

The vial of Felix Felicis sits back in her flat, unopened, but Fleur wonders if she drank the whole thing in her sleep, because her first choice of doors draws her right into the Hall of Prophecy, closest to the one hundred and thirtieth row, not too far from the action. Faint pops of Apparition, laughter, and the murmur of voices pull her ever onward, until she's standing behind the black robes of an oblivious, meandering Death Eater. Curious to know if he is one of the recent Azkaban escapees, Fleur points her wand at his back, steels herself, and thinks, _Petrificus Totalus_!

When the mask fades away like smoke, Ewan Avery glares up at Fleur, and looks nearer to seething after she pockets his wand and moves on.

"You hear him?" A woman exclaims, the noise of her shriek bouncing about the hall like a curse. Fleur can't see her yet, but it doesn't take a savant to know that the voice can only belong to Bellatrix Lestrange. "Giving instructions to the other children as though he thinks of fighting us!"

Fleur creeps further along, paralyzing Mulciber when she catches him alone. She slows the fall of his body, steals his wand, and keeps moving, trying to ignore the sweat beading at her hairline and the trembling in her arm. There are no Triwizard points at stake here, only human lives.

"I know Sirius is here!" Harry Potter snaps, making her heart sink through the floor like it's due for its own trial before the Wizengamot. _The trap._ She can't blame him. If she heard of Gabrielle falling into danger, Fleur would've rushed to save her without hesitation. "I know you've got him!"

The Death Eaters laugh. Though Fleur would like to punish the lot for their cruelty with some of the curses she's learned to break, she refrains.

"Hand over the prophecy," says Lucius Malfoy, just four rows from Fleur now, "and no one need get hurt."

Listening to the argument and keeping out of sight, she surveys the scene. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and two of their classmates are surrounded, outnumbered, and unhurt. The exits are not within reach, unless they run for it. _And the Order..._ the Order will be too late, if Fleur doesn't do something. Between Portkeys and Apparition and the Floo, she doubts any help will come before the stand-off becomes a battle.

"Yeah," Harry is saying now, albeit foolishly, "yeah! I've got no problem saying Vol—"

 _Merde_ , Fleur can't help but think, recognizing a distracted Macnair at the end of her row, _this is the boiling point._

"Shut your mouth!" Lestrange roars, spewing more bile than a doxy. Harry retorts, brave as always, as Fleur inches closer, empathizing with Hermione's pained groan. This is going nowhere, Fleur knows all too well, but every second of the impasse gives them another second to live...

"Do not play games with us, Potter," Malfoy warns. Fleur watches Hermione whisper in Harry's ear, nod, and then lean into Ginny, still whispering.

As Harry asks about the prophecy and the room's tempers pitch to new heights, Ron Weasley's eyes find Fleur. His jaw drops open.

"Quiet," Fleur mouths, and he looks away, tensing. With a similar shift in the others, Fleur realizes with sudden horror that they're going to _strike_.

"NOW!"

Fleur has the chance to duck, but the array of six Reductor curses sends the Death Eaters sprawling and prophecies smashing to the floor. Utter mayhem seizes the night between one breath and the next. In the time it takes for Fleur to avoid the cascade of glass and dart past the wispy seers, the room's occupants are scattering. She flings Stunning Spell after Stunning Spell, hitting Jugson in the face and startling Travers so badly that he's buried with Nott in the wreckage. Dodging a collapsing shelf and the bellowing rage of Bellatrix, Fleur runs through a door and spells it shut.

"...under the desks," Fleur hears from the adjoining room, and rushes to join the fray.

" _Stupefy_!" Fleur cries, forcing the second Death Eater careening face-first into the bell jar. To her astonishment, a baby's head comes to sit on the man's body, trapped in a cycle of—of life. She supposes her grandmother would find that interesting, but Fleur has no time for it, and turns away.

"Fleur?" Harry gasps belatedly.

"It's time," Hermione manages as she, Harry, and the other boy glance between one another and the shrieking grotesquerie, left at a loss.

"It's _time_ to go," says Fleur, drawing herself to her fullest height. "Come along," she adds, with authority. The Order's counting on her. To Fleur's relief and alarm, the three of them obey and follow her, though Harry insists as they start running that they need to find Ron, Ginny, and Luna.

Fleur looks garishly green as she catches sight of her face in a mirror. Any further and she'll become into a banshee. "We will," she tells him.

A door bursts open, letting more Death Eaters in, wands aloft. Fleur readies herself, wishing she was a better duelist.

"In here!" The first yells. "In the office of—" Hermione's Silencing Charm traps his words in his throat.

 _"Impedimenta_!" The other shouts, growling when Fleur deflects it.

Fleur flings Backfiring Jinxes and Cascading Jinxes as fast as she can, then _Langlock_ (she really must thank Bill for that one, if she survives the night). Soundless green and purple curses ripple across the room, though, hitting the other boy and Hermione in the chests. The first curse sears Fleur's eyes and burns her skin as it sails past, filling her with a horrible dread. She's...she's only seen a description of that spell in a _textbook_...

" _Stupefy_! _Stupefy_!" Fleur shouts, spinning on her heel when the men fall bonelessly to the floor and Harry's gasp of agony reaches Fleur's ears.

"Neville! _NEVILLE_!"

Shocked out of her stupor, Fleur hurries to Hermione and feels for a pulse. When the faint thrumming beats below her fingers, she looks up.

 _Merde_. Harry's crouched next to Neville, trying to rouse him. Trying to protect the body, Fleur realizes, aghast, like he did Cedric's.

"'Arry..."

"I—no, he can't!"

An explosion crashes just outside the door, rattling it on its hinges. The fallout is much closer, Fleur realizes, horrorstruck. The crisis is here.

"'Arry, we 'ave to go now," Fleur urges, hating to hear the quavering in her own voice. So much for her authority as a member of the Order. She drapes a limp Hermione's arm over her shoulder, and then tightens her grip on her wand. "Please, 'Arry. I need you to 'elp me with 'Ermione."

"I won't leave him," he mutters, face shining with sweat and tears. Fleur flounders for a control that won't stick. "I can't. _Can't_ ," Harry croaks.

"We'll come back for 'im," Fleur pleads, desperate. "Please. _S'il vo_ —" She swallows thickly. "Zere is no time. We must go."

 _Time? Time for what?_ She manages to wonder, ashamed to push Harry through a tableau of comfort at the worst moment. They shouldn't be here. Neville shouldn't have been here. If none of them were here and _Kingsley_ was on duty, Fleur laments, then Neville wouldn't... _wouldn't_ —

Slowly, Harry gets to his feet, steadies his wand, and pulls Hermione's other arm across his shoulder.

"Ready," Harry mumbles. With a wave of her wand, Fleur unlocks the next door and begins to guide Hermione back into the Entrance Chamber.

The crosses are long gone, Fleur sees when the Time Room is well behind them, feeling like someone's slapped her across the face. While she tries to get a hold of herself, another door pops open, letting Ron, Ginny, and Luna tumble out of the dark to meet them, flushed and panting.

"Ron," says Harry, sounding scared. A giggle draws Fleur's attention. Ron's... _smiling_?

"You're all messed up, Harry," Ron says, feebly, a trail of blood dripping down his chin. A Babbling Curse, Fleur guesses, trying to remember the counterspell. Under such pressure, Fleur can hardly name any magic she's ever learned in her life. "Hermione?" Ron asks, eyes wide and distant. "Looks bad! And you!" He sways toward Fleur until Luna snatches a hand out and rights him. "Veela-girl. _Fleur Del-a-cour_ ," he adds, goofily.

Still supporting Ron, Luna explains what happened as they walk with Ginny hobbling behind the rest of the group, cussing angrily under her breath.

" _Episkey_ ," Fleur murmurs, Hermione's head lolling onto shoulder. If not for the pulse below her skin, Fleur would think her to be dead, too.

"Blimey," says Ginny, straightening up. Relieved, she joins Luna in shepherding her brother along like mother ducks. "Thanks, Fleur."

"Wait." Luna turns her protuberant eyes in Fleur's direction, missing Ron's attempts to play with her silvery hair. "Where's...where's Neville?"

"He didn't make it," Harry answers when Fleur can't. Ginny claps a hand to her mouth. Luna chokes. "C'mon," he mutters, dully. "We gotta go."

They stagger on, avoid Bellatrix Lestrange by the skin of their teeth, and manage to temporarily barricade themselves in the Brain Room...

...where things quickly go from bad to worse. The Death Eaters break in. Luna gets Stunned. Ginny does not emerge from beneath a bookcase that fell on her. Fleur is disarmed. She sinks to her knees, trying to keep the others out of the line of fire. _Protego_ , she thinks again and again, deflecting the curses with her mind. Most break in the air before they are formed; others destroy the furniture around Fleur and Hermione, splaying metal and wood across the floor. Beyond the shimmering wall of her Shield Charms, Harry fires spell after spell, alone and outnumbered again.

" _Accio Wand_ ," Fleur calls, nearly breathless, and catches it in time to deflect another Impediment Jinx from Crabbe.

" _Accio Brain_!" Ron shouts gleefully, summoning one of the hideously floating brains out of the tank for his own amusement.

In spite of themselves, both sides watch in mingled horror and fascination as the tentacles start wrapping around Ron like living ropes.

" _Diffindo_!" Harry shouts, narrowly missing another hex meant for Fleur. Two against five, she realizes, overwhelmed.

Nonetheless, Fleur steps up to help Ron, dodging curses left and right. With one last look at Ron and Fleur, Harry runs for it, the prophecy held high over his head, and draws the crowd along with him. Left behind the Brain Room, Fleur freezes the tentacles, severs them off, and frees Ron.

"I dunno if I...feel so good," he babbles, keeling over in slow motion with a flick of Fleur's wand. "'Lo, floor," Ron muses drowsily, twitching.

"Sleep, Ronald," she suggests, chest heaving with effort, and after a long moment of grappling with her nerves, Fleur races after Harry.

* * *

By the time she gets to the Death Chamber, the battle is already over.

A gurney apiece for the others occupies the corridor of Level 9, casting that bluish light on every face. Scarred and giggling, Ron lies as still as a malfunctioning Sneakscope; Luna, devastated, says little and moves even less; Ginny, beside herself with rage, resists treatment from the Healers from St. Mungo's. Neville, Fleur realizes with a pang, is still and peaceful below a sheet, undisturbed by the traffic of reporters, Order members, Ministry employees, and the Weasleys. But the worst of all is Harry, who lies repose on his own cot, eyes unfocused and a sheet of sweat on his face. She would think him Petrified if not for the terrified pleas that sneak past his lips, begging for a reprieve from someone named Tom Riddle.

"Dumbledore says he's catatonic," Hermione offers in her approach, resting her weight on a crutch when she reaches Fleur. Her eyes are as blank as Harry's. Dumbledore revived Hermione after he arrived, but the Healers insisted on the crutch to stave off the potential of a fainting spell. Fleur thinks Hermione looks closer to beating someone to death with it than fainting. Fleur is almost afraid to ask, but she presses on ahead anyway.

"From...?"

"Sirius died. Then Voldemort"—Fleur winces, reeling in shock, but Hermione barrels on, flat and cool—"got into this head and stayed there."

"I'm..." Tonight (rather, this morning) Fleur is probably losing brain matter by the bucketloads. Too ashamed of her failures to face a debriefing with Dumbledore and the rest, she gives Hermione her full attention. "I am so very sorry, 'Ermione. I seemply was not...quick enough to 'elp."

Hermione shrugs, indifferent. Fleur wonders if her tears are coming now or later. No one is unfeeling, not even Hermione. "You did all you could."

Fleur was the top of her class at Beauxbatons, and an up-and-coming Curse-Breaker. How has it all gone so terribly wrong?

Running a hand through her tangled hair, Fleur avoids the eyes of Bill and Dumbledore and Kingsley and Tonks and wanders away, trying to wriggle free of a nightmare that refuses to end. She wants to wake up. She wants to start the day over again. It showed such promise earlier, she recalls, wistfully. Tea with Adrian and Leslie, lunch with Bill, many a good hour of filing, and even a promise to herself to return to France for a few days...

Things were much simpler when she was still a Beauxbatons girl.

 _That's it_. Fleur draws to a halt, then quickens her pace, not bothering to heed the calls of her name until she's at the door to the Time Room.

"Fleur," Hermione wheezes, staggering along in pursuit. Fleur eyes the crutch warily, unwilling to let the idea get beaten out of her brain.

"What?" She calls over her shoulder, not bothering to seal the door shut. Hermione would just find her way in somehow.

"I know what..." Hermione sucks in a breath, eyes finally blazing again, this time with anger. They reach the bell jar. "I _know_ what you're doing."

Fleur is surprised to learn they are already on the same page, albeit with differing interpretations of the text. "Then you will not stop me, non?"

"I should. You're breaking—you're breaking so many laws that _I_ don't even know where to begin!"

It is not like Hermione not to know something, Fleur observes, staring down at the cycle of breaking and repairing Time-Turners. In her limited appraisal of life at Grimmauld Place, Hermione never seemed to go anywhere without a book. Never went anywhere without an _opinion_ , either.

"Fleur," says Hermione, pleadingly, "you shouldn't..."

"I will," says Fleur, and reaches into the repeating field just long enough to grab one of the chains. Her skin burns hot and cold, constricts and releases, even bristles under cuts of glass, then kisses of sand, until she pries one of them free. Outside of its paradox, the Time-Turner slows its growth cycle, whirring faintly. She watches the clock hands on her watch move, Hermione at her side, just counting. "Three minutes," she murmurs.

"Until _what_?" Hermione asks with an admonishing whack to Fleur's ankle. "Until you come back to your time? Until you get _stuck_ in the _past_?"

"I don't know," Fleur admits, hotly. Are the minutes in between the break and the remodel a guaranteed delay? Three minutes do not get her very far. If Fleur _has_ to pick, it would not be three minutes in the past, it would be _months_. No, a year. A year ago, she was...what? Finishing the Third Task. No, she thinks, it shouldn't be a year. It should be almost _two_. She has to go back much further if she wants to change things properly.

On the watch on Fleur's wrist, thirty precious seconds have gone by. She has a suspicion that the Turner will not survive much longer.

"Messing with time is a bad idea." Hermione watches Fleur arrange the pendant around her neck, dismayed. "Fleur, we lost. Don't make it worse."

"I owe 'Arry," Fleur says, simply. She hasn't put it into words before, but it fits. It _explains_. "'E saved Gabrielle. I 'ave not forgotten zat."

Two minutes left, she sees, antsy. The hourglass has a small crack, spilling sand into her palm. Living time, she guesses, or fading opportunities?

Hermione groans. If her resolve is weakening, she does not show it. "Gabrielle was never in any real—"

"'E saved her anyway. Now I must save 'im." Fleur pauses. "And Ron, and Neville. As many as I can." _Cedric too, if I could..._ but that is a pipe dream, as the English like to say. An intact Time-Turner would give her less than a day; saving Cedric Diggory regrettably requires something of a miracle.

Without warning, Hermione flings the crutch sideways into remnants of the bell jar, then grabs the chain so she can fit it around her neck, too, and not a moment too soon: voices in the hall are only getting closer. _Tonks and Lupin_. Their time is almost out even before the cycle's begun again. Fleur's heart leaps into her throat. Nose to nose, they exchange a look in spite of themselves. "I'm going with you," Hermione insists, scowling.

 _One minute_. Any longer and the cycle will start over. Any longer and someone will intervene, preventing Fleur from mending the night's errors.

Tuning the timepiece with a flick of her wand, Fleur nods once. That is another thing she knows of her new ally. Arguing with Hermione Granger is seldom done by anyone else but her best friends. But now both of her best friends look damaged beyond repair, and after tonight, there will be no one to stand in You-Know-Who's way but Albus Dumbledore, the Order of the Phoenix, and a lost prophecy. "Allons-y," she says, grimly.

Of all directions, Fleur did not expect to go in reverse. _Pointe moi_ , indeed. Perhaps this way, though, Fleur wearily reasons...even hopes, she will be able to do the good she set out to do when the first offer to join the Order was extended to her by Dumbledore along the shores of the Black Lake.

The hourglass flips and flips and flips. The room lurches backwards. Color and shapes flit around Fleur and Hermione. Fleur feels the floor vanish beneath her feet. Unlike Apparition, where the world shrinks in itself and forces the wizard through a pressurized tunnel, jumping back in time feels like she and Hermione are falling off a very high building with nothing between them and true space but the broken, wobbling Time-Turner...


	2. Chapter 2

When Fleur and Hermione return to the Department of Mysteries, Fleur's watch is frozen at five past five in the morning.

"Did it work?" Hermione whispers, as Fleur untangles her from the chain and slips the hourglass under her shirt.

Fleur examines the intact bell jar and the cabinet of unharmed Time-Turners. This room is yet untouched by battle. "Eet seems eet 'as."

"We need to..." Hermione trails off, blinking. Fleur finds herself wondering when the last time either one of them slept. She has half a mind to trudge all the way to her flat and go to bed, or at least march into her kitchen and brew a Wideye Potion before they get moving. "We need to contact Sirius ourselves. If _he's_ the one to tell Harry that he's okay, then Harry won't feel the need to rescue him from You-Know...from Voldemort."

Fleur can't argue with that logic, although she isn't sure if it'll be that simple. Harry Potter and Sirius Black share a few things in common, but a streak of recklessness and a penchant for being stubborn are the most prominent ones. Will Harry believe Sirius, or trust his own judgment?

"We should go," Fleur says what feels like the hundredth time in many hours, dropping her voice to a whisper. "If we are caught 'ere..."

Hermione lifts her chin, steeling herself as if they are on the eve of a new battle. Fleur wishes she had such resolve. _Oh, you Gryffindors._

"Okay," says Hermione, and accepts Fleur's steadying hand. Without the crutch, she sways a little on her feet.

With a wave of her wand, Fleur casts Disillusionment Charms on both of them and leads the way out of the Time Room. The Atrium is the only place that you can Disapparate from and Apparate into in the entire Ministry, unless one wants to end up between Levels 9 and 10. How the Death Eaters bypassed the jinxes and charms is a mystery to Fleur. Usually everyone who tries always seems to land between the floor dedicated to confidential, experimental research and the floor devoted to sentencing wizards for their misguided attempts at experimental magic (Bill finds it funny). Too exhausted to bother with the stairs she flew down last night, Fleur presses the lift buttons and gets Hermione to lean against the opposite wall.

"We did it." Glinting strangely due to the charm, the silhouette of Hermione sounds far more confident than Fleur feels.

Against Fleur's skin, the Time-Turner smolders like a hot iron. After one long agonizing moment, it winks out of existence.

"I 'ope we did," Fleur manages, electing to keep the knowledge—and the pain—to herself. The lift eases to a stop.

"The Atrium," the overhead voice announces, cool and humdrum as ever. The golden grilles slide apart to let them out. As Fleur expected, the room is deserted, although the interdepartmental memos are starting to nest in the secretary's in-tray, fluttering their wings and waiting to be opened.

Taking a deep breath, Fleur draws Hermione over to the Fountain of Magical Brethren, links their arms together, and Disapparates.

They smack down onto a street in Islington, toppling a few wastebins and scaring a stray cat into its next life. With a gasp, Hermione wrenches her arm free of Fleur and stumbles toward one of the bins, retching, the Disillusionment Charm fading away from her body like enchanted ink.

"That's what Apparition feels like?" Hermione moans, raising a trembling hand to her mouth. Fleur wrinkles her nose.

"You 'ave never—?"

"Never! I mean, I used a _Portkey_ to get to the Cup..."

"Well, buck up, as you Eenglish like to say," Fleur insists, ignoring Hermione's glare. There is little room for delays. "We 'ave a job to do."

Under Fleur's shirt, the Time-Turner reappears, cold as a frost. If Fleur's watch still worked, she would know if it is running right on schedule.

_Has it been three minutes?_

They exit the unkempt little park after Hermione is strong enough to walk, the streets mercifully quiet and still at this time of day. Shivering in the wind, Fleur and Hermione move to stand in front of Numbers 11 and 13 and watch the Muggles in their morning routines through the windows.

"You 'ave to envy zem," Fleur remarks, zipping up her jacket. The cold is unusual for June. Are dementors about? "Zeir lives are so eazy..."

"I doubt that," Hermione points out. "That family is moving, and that one has old post piling up on the stoop. Now, can we get to Sirius?"

"Oui," Fleur relents, miffed, and studies the bricks very carefully. _**The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at Number—**_

Unable to finish the whole address, Fleur tries again. _**The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at Number—**_

She glances at Hermione, unsure if the fatigue is disrupting her focus, too, or it is something else entirely. "Did you—?"

"It didn't work," Hermione answers, a hint of worry flitting across her face. "I know it. I _know_ the address. _We_ know the address. But I..."

"We can't get in." Fleur crosses her arms over her chest. There's no...familiarity in the air between Fleur and the space where Number 12 lies, ostensibly occupied. Fleur's last meeting was in May, for Fulcanelli's sake. There, she felt the magic as she always had ever since Albus Dumbledore made her a Secret Keeper. Now, she just feels the wintry air on her skin and the exhaustion from running amok in the Department of Mysteries in her bones. It's as if Number 12 doesn't exist. It's as if Fleur and the magic across the street are strangers again. "The Fidelius Charm has worn off."

"But Fidelius Charms are eternal!" Hermione protests, resting her weight against a broken streetlamp. "The fact that we can't see it is—is—"

"Either Professor Dumbledore 'as died," Fleur posits, uncomfortably, "or ze charm 'as...given us ze shoe."

"The boot," says Hermione, sounding too distressed to try getting past the defenses of Number 12 again. "He's not _dead_ , Fleur. We would know."

 _Would we?_ Fleur steps back onto the curb to avoid a waste collection truck and watches it creep by, disconcerted. "Well, we cannot stay 'ere."

"Let's...let's Floo in," Hermione suggests, scrubbing a hand over her eyes. "We know the location. We just can't _share_ it."

"I do not feel comfortable using ze Floo to vizit a 'ome zat bars us from entering." And an Unplottable home at that...

Hermione drops her hand from her face. "Then what's _your_ brilliant idea? If we can't stay here and we can't Floo in, what are we _supposed_ to do?"

What, indeed. Fleur doesn't want to linger too long on the situation, or in Muggle London for that matter. They only have a day to rewrite last night's tumultuous events. "We will not _vizit_ ," she decides, opting for the high ground instead of snapping back, "but we can still use ze Floo."

Unsurprisingly, Hermione follows the logic without help. "Where?" She asks, failing to hide a yawn behind her hand. "Which fireplace?"

Few shops in Diagon Alley let just anyone use their fireplaces for free. And Fleur has the Ministry to consider. "'Ogsmeade," she replies, fighting another shiver. Her last resort is the Burrow, but Molly Weasley isn't fond of her, no matter what Bill says to the contrary. "I know just ze place."

"Oh, do enlighten me," Hermione mutters, curling a hand around Fleur's arm. In a second, they are gone, the wastebins rattling in their wake.

* * *

They land near the Hog's Head Inn, startling a goat that's wandered into the alley. An alley choked with _snow_ , Fleur notes.

"What the..." Hermione glances in Fleur's direction, just as puzzled and, as far as Fleur can tell, queasy from the Side-Along journey.

Fleur does not feel much better, loath as she is to admit it. She declined help from the Healers for the weak Stinging Jinx on her cheek, then Apparated from London to the Scottish Highlands without much rest in between. Trying not to tarry with such _small_ problems, Fleur only shrugs in answer. Unseasonable weather and mild indispositions are the least of their worries right now, with Harry's condition and the deaths of Neville and Sirius still needing mending. _Stuff the Wideye...I need a Wiggenweld Potion._ In fact, Fleur does not want to give them another minute of her day.

"Zis way."

Trainers sinking into ankle-deep drifts, Fleur leads Hermione to the post office, searching to no avail for the sun in the gloomy Scottish sky. The owner lights up as they step through the door, abandoning his tea and the morning edition of the _Daily Prophet_ to meet them at the counter.

"Miss Delacour!" He greets, delighted. Fleur smiles politely. He mailed the Christmas gifts for her last year. "Coming in rather early, aren't you?"

"I 'ope I am no trouble," she says, cajoling. As she expected, he waves that off. Hermione rolls her eyes. "May I borrow your fireplace?"

"Certainly, certainly." The owner presses a bag of Floo powder into her hands. "If you need anything else, my dear, please do not hesitate to ask."

Hermione follows Fleur into the back room, a sour look on her features. "Don't you ever get tired of that?"

"Yes, I do get tired, 'Ermione," says Fleur, approaching the hearth.

"No, I meant—"

"I know what you meant." Fleur unties the bag and grabs a handful of the powder. Unlike the leaking sand of the Time-Turner, the Floo powder is a rich green, sparkling in the way the morning will not. She offers the pile to Hermione, frowning. "I am...accustomed to ze attention, I assure you."

"Accustomed," Hermione repeats, dubious, cupping her hands together to catch the powder. Not even exhaustion deters her thirst for knowledge.

"I do not appreciate eet, 'Ermione, but I am _accustomed_. Do you understand zat, I 'ope, from one witch to anuzzer?"

After a moment of scrutiny, Hermione nods, then tosses the powder into the fire. When the flames are glowing green, Hermione kneels and declares, "12 Grimmauld Place!" Less than a minute later, she sits back on the hearth, soot on her nose and confusion everywhere else. "It's empty."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The kitchen. It's empty."

That infernal kitchen is one of the few habitable rooms in the Black estate, Fleur knows. She does not find it likely that the Order will convene to the dining room, which has spiders the size of teacups in the cabinets. "Allow me." When Fleur peers beyond the flames, her relief at bypassing the intricacies of the Fidelius Charm is short-lived. From her vantage point, the kitchen is nothing like it was in May. In the gloom, rodents and insects scurry as they please, cobwebs stretch from chair to chair, and a revolting stench overpowers even the smell of ashes and burning wood. It's as if no one has laid a finger on the dusty table in years, not even Mrs. Weasley. "'Allo?" She calls, impatiently. "Is anyone 'ere?" _Sirius ought to be..._

"Who dares," a voice grumbles, approaching the fireplace on a gait of shuffling feet, "enter my Mistress's halls?"

At last, the house-elf comes into view, easily the palest thing in the kitchen. "Monsieur Kreacher," Fleur greets, relaxing. "Where is Sirius?"

"Master Sirius?" Kreacher asks, looking disgusted. "Master Sirius is cavorting with blood traitors and brats and filth. He is not here, Kreacher knows."

Everyone insisted she ignore the house-elf's dislike of his master, so Fleur soldiers on despite the discomfort. "When will he be back?"

"He swore never to return," Kreacher answers with a revolting little relish. Fleur's patience, already thinning, drains to its last dregs. "Not after he came of age. Mistress disowned him, she did, and good riddance. We are better off without him. He has not been here in...oh, _twenty_ years."

His memory is not the best. She's heard that as well. "Sirius moved back in," Fleur reminds Kreacher, uneasy, "don't you remember?"

"Kreacher hopes not. Maybe the boggart ate him," Kreacher says, a picture of indifference. He shuffles away. Fleur pulls back into the post office.

"Well?" Hermione asks, slowing her pacing about the room.

"Kreacher said Sirius wasn't...in," is all Fleur can honestly say, brushing the soot from her hair. "Per'aps we should find Professor Dumbledore now."

"Umbridge is still the headmistress, unless the centaurs keep her. And Professor McGonagall is in St. Mungo's," Hermione adds, looking glum.

 _Merde_ , Fleur forgot about that. _Both_ of those things. And a letter won't help—an owl would need an address to locate Dumbledore, wouldn't it?

That leaves them only with Severus, Fleur knows, who will send the same Patronus message to the others in the Order with different results. The potential is tempting. Would Kingsley or Dumbledore himself do better in Fleur's place? _Definitely_. Perhaps no one would've died if Fleur had gone home last night. She tunes back into Hermione's musings. "I suppose we should just try to...head ourselves off?" Hermione is wondering with a frown. "I've done it before. It's tricky, but not _impossible_. We'll need to be smarter than I am, obviously," Hermione continues, walking out of the shop as she ponders what to do next. Fleur waves goodbye to the owner on her way out for propriety's sake, pursuing Hermione on sluggish feet.

"And Harry wouldn't be fooled, either, unless if we do something drastic...last time we had a werewolf and a hundred dementors to distract us..."

Then Hermione stops dead, not even complaining when an unsuspecting Fleur smacks right into her back.

"We can't get on the grounds."

_"What?" _Fleur demands, aghast. First the Fidelius Charm, and now this? Problems upon problems!__

"Fudge passed dozens of Educational Decrees," Hermione explains, changing direction. "Nobody's allowed in or out unless their parents write to Umbridge and 'renew their permission' to Hogsmeade. It's rubbish and everyone knows it, but new enchantments are still over all the entrances."

"So _'ow_ are we supposed to—?"

"We'll need to use the Shrieking Shack."

Few from Beauxbatons dared to venture closer to it after the Hogsmeade villagers told them of its unpleasant history, Fleur included. With the Tournament weighing so heavily on her mind, Fleur did not have as much free time as her classmates to explore what lay beyond Hogwarts.

"Isn't ze shack 'aunted?"

Hermione scoffs. "Of course not. That was Professor Lupin all along."

Off the beaten path, the Shrieking Shack sits forlornly in a fenced off clearing. The gate squeaks as she and Hermione slip onto the estate and hurry to the front door, but no one else is near enough to hear. Wooden boards block the door as well as the windows, barring even the smallest glimpse of the rooms within. All is not as it seems, though, Fleur notices. There are some enchantments at work here, keeping not only the outside world from getting in but also keeping whatever may lay beyond _in_. Beneath the smell of locking charms and deterrent spells, she detects a strong hex.

"I would not do zat," Fleur says just as Hermione raises her wand at the door to force it open. "You will sprout antlers...or 'orns."

"I—are you sure?"

"Who is ze Curse-Breaker between us?" She prompts, disregarding Hermione's grumble and approaching the door for a closer look herself. All spells are never completely impervious to an undoing, she learned from Leslie. Curses, jinxes, hexes...none are exactly the same, but there is always a vulnerability in every casting. Even the Killing Curse can be thwarted, however rare and misunderstood the method is. Spells on locations are the easiest to unravel, Fleur observed, after many a raid on old pureblood mansions, than the like left on people. _People are more complex_ , Madam Chang said after Fleur dismantled a Vermiculus Jinx at a cauldron shop in Diagon Alley. _Most inanimate objects won't fight you back._

Fleur spots the weakness after a moment. One panel of wood is newer than the rest. " _Emancipare_ ," she says, focusing precisely on that spot.

The door swings open, screeching on its hinges. Hermione steps in first, throwing a glance at Fleur over her shoulder.

"How did you _do_ that?"

Distracted by the state of the Shack, she doesn't reply at once. "Mademoiselle Granger," Fleur remarks, drolly, "are you impressed?"

"Of course!" Hermione sounds almost offended as the two of them descend into a tunnel. "You know magic I couldn't even dream of yet."

Fleur tries not to feel too pleased by that.

When it becomes too dark to move safely, Hermione's distracted _Lumos_ forces the shadows to retreat.

Trying to stave off the chill that's gotten worse underground, Fleur plies the path with Warming Charms. At the end of the tunnel, Hermione holds up a hand. "We need to freeze the branches," she whispers to Fleur after the tunnel gives way to an opening of earthen stairs, giant roots, and fresh snow. Fleur even gets a peek at the open sky from what looks like the base of a _very_ large tree. She watches Hermione grab a rock and levitate it.

" _Freeze_ —?"

"This is the Whomping Willow. It'll kill us if we get too close." A clatter makes the ceiling groan, then settle. Hermione scrambles up the stairs.

"'Ogwarts," Fleur mutters when all is said and done, accepting Hermione's hand of help to climb out of the nest of roots, "is mad." _Still mad_.

Brushing dust away, Hermione makes sure Fleur does not miss the exaggerated roll of her eyes. "Oh, don't you complain. We're here, aren't we?"

They head off, extinguishing their wands and starting up the path. The sun is creeping higher when the greenhouses at last come into sight. It will be a long and miserable walk to the castle, but Fleur cannot help but be relieved. Her watch is still frozen, but by her estimate, most of the students of Hogwarts will be waking up for breakfast soon. That gives her and Hermione an entire day to figure out what to do about Harry's vision.

A pressing worry jumps to Fleur's mind, though, banishing the residue of the Warming Charms completely.

"'Ermione, I may...'ave discovered a flaw in my reazoning," she admits, extricating her trainers from another bank of snow. In the Pyrenees, Fleur always managed to dress appropriately. Beauxbatons students did not lack for cloaks, in spite of the first impression they may have made on their first night at Hogwarts School. She is just not overfond of this Scottish weather that so often strikes when she is wearing precisely the _wrong_ thing.

Snow in June—it's just preposterous!

"Yes," Hermione offers, absently, "I know. It's against the law to be seen by your past self. We'll cross that bridge when we get it to it, Fleur."

Is that a Muggle expression? "I am sure my Disillusionment Charms will fail under ze scrutiny of your teachers," she persists. They haven't discussed the next steps. Shall they lurk in castle's corners until nightfall and the right moment to deter the group that will try to save Sirius?

"I don't care," says Hermione, shocking Fleur, but she goes on without looking back. "If we can save everyone, so be it, we'll break the law."

"If you saw yourself, would you believe it?" Fleur has to ask. _She_ would think it to be sophisticated—and Dark—magic and not a genuine omen.

"If you asked me when I was a second year, no. If you asked me as soon as my _third_ year was over, yes. I told you," Hermione goes on, "I've done this before. I've meddled with time once already. It went as well as it could, I think. Sirius lived, Buckbeak lived...Harry got to know Sirius as the man he was, not as the mass murderer everyone thinks him to be." Fleur listens to Hermione pause, trying not to linger on Harry's current condition. And Sirius...he was still gone too. "This time," Hermione concludes, the words now almost bitingly harsh, "I'll do whatever it takes to get it right."

Unsure of what else to say, Fleur holds her tongue. They've gotten this far, haven't they?

After a long silence and a longer spell of walking, Hermione points out the Entrance Hall. To their surprise, it's already bustling with people. A familiar color catches her eye, but Fleur doesn't believe what she sees until she's near enough to study the robes and catch bits of conversation—

_In French._

"Why 'as Beauxbatons come?" Fleur asks of Hermione, who shrugs, mystified. If Fleur isn't mistaken, the last of the O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams go on today. She doubts even Dolores Umbridge would invite another school to visit with the fifth and seventh years are under so much stress...

 _Small matters._ She shakes her head. Before Fleur can cast the Disillusionment Charms, however, she hears a call of her name.

Try as she may to hide it, the appearance of Giselle is a _shock_. With her flyaway red hair and the pretty twist of a belt around her waist, she looks as she did during Fleur's last year at Beauxbatons, newly seventeen and selected to join Madame Maxime for the exchange. What is she _doing_ here?

"Hugo asked me to the Yule Ball!" Giselle exclaims, beaming. "We were walking up to the castle, and—!"

For the first time, Fleur's transition back to her native tongue is graceless. Either the cold is getting to her once and for all, or the Time-Turner.

"The Yule Ball?" Fleur repeats, struck with a mad desire to laugh. _No, surely...surely not..._

Oblivious to Fleur's alarm, Giselle giggles. "You are always so groggy in the mornings," she scolds. "The Yule Ball follows the First Task, silly girl."

Giselle's teasing drowns out Fleur's confusion, but it is the appearances of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley that shoves the confusion into near hysteria. While Giselle painstakingly recounts Hugo's romantic streak, Fleur spies Hermione going paler and paler, even as her friends chatter amongst themselves about the breakfast she missed and their upcoming Care of Magical Creatures lesson with the rather aptly named Blast-Ended Skrewts. Unmarred by the Brain Room, Ronald offers Hermione half of a piece of toast, for once not noticing Fleur. No longer possessed by You-Know-Who, Harry looks longingly at the sky as his friends speak, as if wishing to use his Firebolt again, a feat of daring that impressed even her...

 _Get it right_ , Hermione had said. It seems they have actually gotten it _right_ , Fleur supposes, or perhaps horrifying _wrong_...

Touching her neck, she's no longer sure of what she is saying to Giselle or Edgar for that matter, who wandered over in the interim and gave Fleur another scare. The Time-Turner has disappeared again after a much longer than usual stay with Fleur. Did she miscount its pattern—its life?

She has to speak to Hermione immediately.

"Actually," Hermione now interrupts the boys, "let Hagrid know that I'll be in the Hospital Wing. I'm not feeling very well, you see."

"I should go," says Fleur, hurrying to clarify over the amusingly similar noises of puzzlement from Harry, Ron, Edgar, and Giselle, albeit in different conversations. "I went for a walk," she explains, indicating her clothes, "and I'm afraid I've caught a chill. Give my regards to...Professor...erm—"

The Hogwarts exchange gave all twelve of the Beauxbatons students a chance to see how the other half learned in the dreary highlands of Scotland, to the almost assured dismay of the castle's already overworked professors. Fleur knows that. Fleur _remembers_ that. Of course, Fleur lived it, but that was more than a year ago, practically a lifetime ago by now. Beneath the panic that is on the precipice of overwhelming Fleur entirely, it is a small relief to know that her recollections will not _always_ desert her in a time of great need. Just, apparently, during the odd life-or-death duel!

"Professor Snape," Edgar pipes up, mirroring Fleur's apprehensive look. Giselle is pitying. "He won't be happy, Fleur."

Though she is sure she will regret it, Fleur dismisses him. "He is never happy. Please, do go on without me."

Wishing her well, Giselle and Edgar turn and traipse toward the dungeons. Fleur lingers behind, hoping Hermione can make her excuses fast.

"'Girl problems'?" Harry repeats loudly. Trying to be inconspicuous, Fleur stifles a groan. "What kind of problems'll send you all the way to Pomfrey?"

"C'mon, mate," Ronald hisses just as Hermione gains some color again, albeit an embarrassed flush. " _Girl_ problems!"

"Oh," says Harry, nodding jerkily. None of the three seem able to look each other in the eye. If the situation were not so desperate, Fleur probably would've laughed aloud. _And they call themselves lions_! "Right," Harry adds, recovering himself the quickest. "Okay. Well...see you later?"

As the boys flee as if someone's set their trousers aflame, Fleur joins Hermione. The Entrance and Great Halls are emptying as bells begin to ring, signaling the start of the lessons. Wanting to avoid the exiting professors, they make for the staircase, passing a handful of Hufflepuffs and a heated argument about Gobstones. Despite favoring her left side over her right ever since she was struck by the Death Eater's spell in the Time Room, Hermione does not forget to skip the stairs that tend to eat your feet (to Fleur's annoyance, Hermione's assistance is soon required).

"We should talk," Fleur suggests under her breath, trying to fight the limits of her body. There is so much to discuss, to consider, and yet...

To Fleur's relief, Hermione seems to feel no better. "Later," Hermione sighs, swanning to the nearest bed in the Hospital Wing, and that is that.

* * *

When Fleur wakes much later in her own bed, the Hospital Wing is darker than the Hall of Prophecy.

Still in the much abused clothes she wore to work on Thursday morning, Fleur sits up against her pillow, disoriented.

"Hi," Hermione whispers, illuminated by the light of the oil lamps along the wall. Surrounded by sweets and comfortable in her pajamas, Hermione sits crosslegged on the next cot. She puts her book down, peering over at Fleur. "Thank Merlin. You slept for so long I thought you were _really_ ill."

Over the noise of her stomach rumbling, Fleur gazes at the sweets with longing. "I just needed...rest."

"We both did. I don't know if Madam Pomfrey bought the cover story, but she let us stay anyway."

"What story?"

Following Fleur's eyes, Hermione passes over the tin of Pink Coconut Ice. "I said you fainted on the grounds," she explains, carrying on over Fleur's half-choked cry of protest, "and I found you on my morning jog. Muggle exercise," Hermione hastens to add, well-practiced at making herself heard over the pigheaded and the foolish. "You looked pretty awful, so she must've assumed you were stressed about the Tournament..."

While Fleur isn't fond of admitting weakness, she concedes to cleverness. In the very least, Hermione's quick-thinking kept the questions at bay.

With great effort, Fleur swallows. "I was...nervous. Ze first time. Ze tasks were frightening." But now she has a second chance? Her head feels fit to go swimming. "Are we... _back_?" She must ask quietly. The infirmary is deserted, but Hogwarts is like a living thing at times, always eavesdropping.

In the depths of her dreams, a part of Fleur hoped that her horrible Thursday never occurred at all. As she slept, Fleur was far from the mess in the Ministry, idling the hours away in Mallièvre with Gabrielle, safe and happy and careless within the Delacour estate and its beautiful gardens...

"I think so. This feels too elaborate to be a dream."

"'You theenk'?"

"Also," Hermione continues, lifting her chin and fixing Fleur with a haughty expression, "the calendar says it's the second of December."

So much for an unusually cold June. In Islington and in Hogsmeade, it was December of bygone year all along. The last year of peace, Fleur notes.

Her last stay at Hogwarts fills her mind again. The heavy food, the drafty halls...the excitement of the Yule Ball and its (subpar) decorations...shopping in Hogsmeade for gifts. No wonder the owner was so delighted to see Fleur again. She had gone into the post office only a week before at this time. She remembers wanting to finish the process fast so she could devote all of her attention to the festivities...

That isn't important. What _is_ important is the absurd fact of their journey straying so far from the goal. Somehow, the Time-Turner's leap backwards obeyed Fleur's impossible wish instead of its own rules and limits. _Cedric too, if I could_ , she remembers thinking, when the plan to rewrite the battle fell into place and their chance to do so was running out. At the time, Fleur was both desperate and good-intentioned—were those significant details? Did the Laws of Magic bend to her will because she _wanted_ it? Or was their jump a fluke at best (and a mistake at worst)?

"Zat explains all ze snow," says Fleur to mask her silence. She pulls the bedcovers higher with a huff. "Your 'orrible weather sent me for a ring."

"Threw you for a loop. What else did you think was going on?" Hermione asks with narrowed eyes, missing nothing.

Keeping her gaze on the sweets, Fleur shrugs, not yet keen to draw attention to the Time-Turner. Best to be blasé until it's properly investigated.

"Nothing."

"Well..." Hermione offers a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, letting Fleur start rooting around inside for a favorite. "We need a plan."

"Our plans 'ave gone awry," Fleur points out, making a face and dropping the offending bean in the bin. _Phlegm_!

Hermione continues without interruption, speaking more to herself than Fleur. "I mean, what happened is just unprecedented! We broke the rules and the law... _successfully_. It should've been impossible to go so far in the past without serious injury. One witch _died_ , you know. An Unspeakable. Professor McGonagall made me read the Ministry's declassified research to get a Time-Turner. Eloise Mintumble went backwards five _centuries_ and...well, she never left St. Mungo's. Then everyone she met in the past made their descendants in the present _disappear_. They were un-born."

Fleur gets rid of a bean with an envelope glue flavor, horrified. "Un-born?" She repeats, praying she's just lost in translation again.

" _Yes_. They were erased from history." Hermione busies her hands with the duvet, looking fearful. "What if that happens to _us_?"

Briefly, Fleur tries to imagine a world without herself or Hermione, only to give up when the possibilities begin to strain the brain that she most certainly did not leave behind in her office... _in 1996_. Should Hermione and Fleur bounce back to their own year, she doesn't doubt that the timeline would warp and twist and curve in irreparable ways. Would Hogwarts Castle cave in on itself? Would Britain collapse into a...vortex? A whirlpool?

No wonder Grimmauld Place shut them out. Sirius Black hasn't yet reclaimed the residence, and with it, named Albus Dumbledore as the Secret-Keeper. No wonder why Kreacher hadn't seen his master in two decades. No wonder _why_ Beauxbatons students loitered in the Entrance Hall...they're still in their inter-school exchange. The Triwizard Tournament is _not_ over, You-Know-Who hasn't yet risen, and the war hasn't started!

"Until eet 'appens, we should not worry," Fleur manages, trying to find some control in the situation. The Order counted on her last night. Fleur answered the call. Her first taste of battle went poorly, but...now there is a second chance. Another chance to be better. "We 'ave a job to do."

"This job is too big," Hermione protests in a whisper, though she may still be swayed... "We're changing _so much_ , Fleur. We can save—"

Despite her doubts, Fleur has her answer ready. She refuses to lose her nerve again, not wholly and not for long. "Cedric."

"Cedric," Hermione repeats, eyes widening. "I didn't realize..."

Leaning back against the pillows, Fleur studies the ceiling. She's slept for many hours, but the conversation is tiring in itself. _Grief takes many tolls. Fear sups greedily, too_ , Dumbledore said, but she and Hermione are the only ones who are grieving, the only ones who are afraid... "We can save Cedric, 'Arry, Sirius...Ronald. Neville." The opportunity to rework so much pain and misery is a tantalizing prospect that Fleur simply cannot resist.

Harry was so _noble_ saving Gaby, convinced as Fleur was that the hostages were in jeopardy. All she can do— _must_ do—is return the favor.

But can _Hermione_ resist the lure? If Fleur were to do it alone, can Hermione return safely? The Time-Turner is unpredictable, even dangerous...

"What of ourselves?" Fleur asks, a new puzzle coming to mind. She had no spare moment to wonder where the Fleur Delacour of 1994 went, but the disquiet is now climbing into the bed and curling alongside _this_ Fleur's cold feet and squirming worry. "Our old selves. You said not to be seen."

"I haven't seen myself, or you," Hermione admits. Going by the reception from their four friends in the Entrance Hall, it's as if they vanished from their beds in the morning, undiscovered by all. _Erased_. "Either _they_ were un-born, or we just...took over. Took their places, I should say."

"And what of ze future?" Fleur prods, wondering about the other end of the long line of time, the leap-off point. "Are we... _missing_?"

"I don't know."

Fleur gives a sigh. There lies a troubling thought. She has no way of checking in on the future, not without a talented seer. "I don't, either."

They're quiet for a few minutes, just thinking about it. Just _stewing_ on it, like the Time-Turner is a cauldron and Fleur and Hermione are part of the ingredients list of a particularly complicated potion. Botching their...adventure might mean the end of everything and everyone they know...

But what if they get it right? (Still so many questions, Fleur is coming to understand, and fewer that can be answered right now.)

Hermione fiddles with the box of Ice Mice, looking like she's preparing herself for a fight again. "We can save Cedric," she echoes, decisively.

"We can also die in ze attempt," Fleur must say. She hasn't often considered the possibility, but now it looms. "Zis may cause more 'arm than good."

"That happens to me every year," Hermione opines, clearly hit by a Cheering Charm, because she's _smiling_ now. Fleur eyes her, confused.

"Quoi?"

Fleur's never seen her smile so big. "Being Harry's friend brings life-or-death situations around pretty regularly. I'm almost used to it, I think."

Perhaps she would grow as comfortable with so much fear, too, in Hermione's place as one of Harry Potter's best friends. "With every risk, a reward," Fleur observes, wry. Perhaps Hermione is accustomed to poor odds. _Bad_ odds. Fleur, on the other hand, may need to expand her purview.

Extending a hand, Hermione adopts a challenging look. "To the reward," she says, returning to typical brashness even Fleur herself has noticed.

_The reward._

Fleur knows that to mean a great many things. A united wizarding world, if the cards fall correctly. Friends, old and new, keeping the lives that were so unfairly taken away. A chance at something better. There are catastrophic consequences, too, much like the risks of breaking old curses...

There is nowhere left to go but on, Fleur realizes, onward and upward to the very end. "To ze reward," she agrees, and shakes Hermione's hand.


	3. Chapter 3

Skipping stone after stone along the shore of the Black Lake, Fleur watches the sun's steady rise into the sky and takes a moment. Takes stock.

If anyone else stood in her shoes, Fleur doesn't doubt they too would feel just as...out of sorts.

Somehow, against all odds, she and Hermione successfully returned to the days of the Triwizard Tournament, unharmed and still quite sane. _For now._ Their mode of travel is still intact. _For now_ , Fleur can't help but think, listening to the clink of the Time-Turner's chain as she bends to fetch another stone. (The hourglass should disappear in a few minutes, if her calculations are correct.) Their journey, meanwhile, has still gone undetected... _for now_ , she reckons for the third time, wishing the reward for saving a lot of boys from the fickle fingers of fate was not so far away.

Fleur lets the last stone fly, dusts off her hands, and starts walking for the castle, for once glad of the heavy Hogwarts food. She is _starving_.

She left Hermione in the Hospital Wing before dawn, wanting to freshen up and change her clothes, but it was only after she stepped into the Beauxbatons carriage that she felt the journey begin to sink in. _It worked_ , Fleur had thought, creeping into the dormitory that she shared with Céline to grab her toiletries and a set of spare robes. Instead of considering the past in a hazy darkness of old and near forgotten memories, Fleur lingered in the doorway and gazed upon the now clear-as-crystal details—the matching vanities on either side of the room, the faint whiff of perfume in the air, the twin desks piled high with schoolwork, the keepsakes, and the grinning photographs—and for the first time, felt _immersed_.

Anchored, she supposed, like a kite on a string.

It was the possessions that were pulling Fleur in and planting her in the past as solidly as the roots of the Whomping Willow, so she lit her wand and slunk to her side of the room, careful not to wake Céline, and pried open the wardrobe. At one point, she'd closed her eyes as she tiptoed across the floor, thinking of little but her belongings, the things she painstakingly collected and kept...up until more than a year in the future, stowed safely away in her (now lost) London flat. The duplicates remained, however. The Beauxbatons uniform. A pair of veela-blessed earrings that let you listen in after someone said your name in a conversation. Her well-loved heels. Her books. Gaby's handprints on a piece of wrinkled parchment, painted when she was still crawling. Smiling a little, Fleur gathered her things and strode for the washroom, somewhat comforted.

Some things needed to change, Fleur had decided, donning her hat to brave the Scottish wind as she left the carriage, but the rest could stay.

* * *

Just as Fleur predicted, Snape does not take kindly to her absence. At lunch, the news of the penalty comes quicker than the food—a detention.

It's the first of her academic career. Fleur doesn't bother to hide her dismay from the messenger, nor anyone else. "Thank you, Cho," she says.

With a soft, sympathetic smile, Cho Chang leaves Fleur with her regrets and then joins her friends at the end of the bench.

Truthfully, Fleur doesn't care _that_ much. It's the only _second_ run of her academic career, after all. Will one bout of misconduct really ruin the whole thing? And yet, in a series of unexpected and unprecedented events, Fleur Delacour is seventeen years old again. A girl in the last leg of her education _would_ detest the shame of such a blemish on her permanent record, and complain bitterly of her misfortune to her closest friends...

(This all according to a certain Gryffindor, which struck Fleur as odd when she heard it, as she recalls Hermione's disregard for breaking _dozens_ of wizarding laws. The lions of Hogwarts, she's found, like scheming, playacting, and making impassioned stands over, say, self-recrimination.)

"Merlin's beard, Fleur," Sacha chuckles, glancing up from his plate, "what did you _do_?"

Staring with unabashed curiosity, the rest of the Beauxbatons party waits for the answer. Fleur rolls her eyes and lowers her spoon.

"Gossips, the lot of you," she grumbles, but succumbs to the pressure of eleven inquiring faces. "I missed a class yesterday." _All_ of her classes, actually, if the matron is to be believed. Pomfrey was even heard to wonder if Fleur had ingested the Draught of Living Death by mistake.

Fleur's other professors were more understanding. Flitwick even withheld an essay, instead preferring to discuss her charmwork in the First Task.

Madame Maxime was not so generous. When Fleur presented herself after breakfast, her headmistress simply deferred the punishment to Snape.

"Why?" Manon asks, slipping a Canary Cream onto Henry's plate while his attention is diverted. When she feels Fleur's gaze, Manon winks.

"Was it something to do with the Tournament...?" Céline questions, only to trail off and lift her eyes to rest on a point beyond Fleur's shoulder.

They're all looking now, studying the point with the same frank interest and polite reserve. Getting rather curious herself, Fleur turns in her seat.

"Excuse me," Hermione greets, books clutched close to her chest. In spite of their twice-lived Thursday, her gaze is just as sharp, attentive, and determined as ever. Unlike Albus Dumbledore, though, Hermione's command of French has—unfortunately—lapsed. "May I have a word?"

"An arm, a leg, or a word, it's yours," Charles says at once, and endures Giselle's disapproving smack upside-the-head with good grace.

Flushing pink, Hermione's eyes dart imploringly back to Fleur.

Fleur retrieves her bag, all too willing to leave their audience in suspense. "Very well. Lead on, Miss Granger." On their way out, shouts of laughter rise from the Ravenclaw table. Glancing back, Fleur spies a large canary irritably flapping its wings at Manon and molting all over Henry's old place.

"What was all that about?" Hermione asks after the Great Hall is not far behind, switching back to English with ill-disguised relief.

Fleur widens her eyes, feigning innocence. "Ze larks of ze Weasley boys are very amusing. I did not weesh to spoil Manon's fun."

"No, that..." Hermione makes shudder quotes with her fingers, waiting until Fleur skips the ankle gobbling steps to add, " _Miss Granger_ rubbish."

"Zat 'rubbish' was your idea, 'Ermione. I was only following your advice."

Before they can _begin_ to get their bearings in the past and further develop a plan to save the future, Hermione insisted maintaining previous appearances was a priority. Finding no alternative that was worth keeping, Fleur acquiesced. For all intents and purposes, things are just as they used to be—she is a Triwizard champion and Hermione is the brightest witch of her year. In that sense, Fleur is not sure what she's missing.

Head bowed peevishly over her books, Hermione mutters something about taking things too literally.

Trailing behind a gaggle of Viktor's admirers to the library, Fleur soon finds herself alone in the threshold, and turns on her heel to learn why.

Hermione's stopped short of entering, looking for all the world like a girl denied a treat. Fighting a mean urge to laugh, Fleur adopts a quizzical air.

"I'm late for Potions," Hermione explains, regretfully, "but can we meet here afterward? I really did want to speak with you."

Now more bemused than anything else, Fleur agrees and strolls on unattended, taking care to ignore the suspicious looks from Madam Pince on her way to the aisles. During her last stay at Hogwarts, Fleur quickly discovered not to take Pince's nature personally. Viktor, Fleur recalls, made her and Cedric howl with laughter after he suggested the librarian should've been their shared opponent in the First Task. _Ve vould steal the oldest book in her stores_ , Viktor added, giving a rare smile as Fleur and Cedric fumbled for some semblance of poise. _Imagine dropping one in the vater!_

Taking a book off the shelf without a second glance at the cover, Fleur settles into a seat beside a window. She is not so long out of school that old habits are out of her reach. Like Viktor, she spent much of her days at Hogwarts in its library, fervently researching and preparing for each task, often aimlessly running her fingers along the peeling spines and dusty shelves. Though Madame Maxime did warn Fleur of the dragon, she left Fleur to her own devices to find a way to subdue it. Cheating in the Triwizard Tournament was as old as the contest itself, and the headmistress was eager to further her silly agenda against Dumbledore. Professor Karkaroff arrived with the same intent, whether Viktor knew that much or not.

 _And here I am again_ , Fleur muses, _loyal to another headmaster and keen to save both of his champions, no matter the cost._

In a few respects, it is nice to be back. Fleur is free from her responsibilities, bound only to the duties of the Tournament (like the boys, she was also exempt from the end-of-year exams, but she took the N.Y.M.P.H.s anyway after she returned to France). She isn't constantly looking over her shoulder, wondering if the next Dark curse she breaks will be her last. She isn't scanning the _Daily Prophet_ , searching for a familiar name in the growing number of mysterious disappearances. Instead, she's ensconced in the overt and covert protections of Hogwarts and Dumbledore himself. But here, in the skin of a seventeen year old, she feels...smaller, or at least as small as a champion can feel with the eyes of so many on her body.

Her body is all they care about, thanks to the thrall. Fleur sighs. Things are just as they used to be, but it does not please her, not as much as she felt in service to the Ministry and the Order of the Phoenix, twice sworn to make the world a little safer. Foisted back into the life of someone who hasn't seen a _real_ fight, she can see herself bristling at the outgrown limits sooner rather than later. After over a year at the Ministry, enjoying all the trappings of independence and adulthood, going back to the easier life of a Beauxbatons girl is...very stifling. She misses the challenge, the thrill, even the ironclad belief from Leslie and Adrian in her own skill (one not judged by a point system). She feels...like a stranger in her old-and-new skin, like a portrait trying to climb bodily out of its frame, like a creature evading its inevitable, wintry hibernation, like she's wearing Gaby's too small hat, skirt, and shoes. She is _stuck_ deferring to her elders again. She is _caged_ by her 'lack of' knowledge and her 'lack of' experience!

 _Not taken seriously again, either_...

Feeling a bad humor coming on like a chill, Fleur vacates her seat, content to wander the stacks again and leave her grousing behind, but the mood is as eager of a shadow as the boys of Hogwarts. Despite being older and wiser and different and much more experienced, she's still—still—

 _Still sulking_? A more reasonable part of Fleur asks, sounding calmer than she is at the moment, and perhaps a hair more mature.

Yes, Fleur realizes, sulking and looking a gift Abraxan in the mouth, because the chance to save Cedric Diggory is no small matter. If Fleur is being honest with herself, the complaints are about as small as she feels. The real problem, Fleur must privately admit, is the Time-Turner.

This time, Fleur ducks into an aisle with renewed purpose.

She starts pulling books from the shelves, attracting the librarian's attention again. A book on metaphysics joins the stack, followed by studies of cosmology. She grabs outdated Arithmancy textbooks, discarded Divination treatises, _Atlas of Celestial Anomalies_ , and then _Magical Moral Perspective_ for good measure. _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ is left behind in her haste, but Fleur doubles back for it, wondering if solutions can be found in its fantasies and legends. _World Mythology_ follows suit. For all Madam Pince knows, it is just another day at Hogwarts, and just another student touching her precious books, but Fleur knows better. After all, she has a job to do. _A duty not to be taken lightly_. It is not the time for reminiscence or crying over spilt potion, Fleur decides as she finds another seat far from the main thoroughfare, it is the time to investigate.

"Paradoxes," Fleur murmurs, toying with the Turner's chain and jumping to a passage about the temporal kind. _A contradiction, an inconsistency_...like the fluke and facts of her journey into the past with Hermione. Until last night, such a scope of time travel was hypothetical (Eloise Mintumble notwithstanding). Fleur remembers escaping the cold clutches of time and the void of space, yet cannot imagine herself and Hermione into the equations she'd sooner see in Professor Vector's class, or even Mademoiselle Montagne's, Vector's counterpart at Beauxbatons. Instead, Fleur keeps returning to the things that she can touch and see and feel with her own two hands, the things she knows to be real and here and there, like her robes, silk and unchanged and beautiful, or the skin of her wrist, still bearing scars from a hex accident as a Curse-Breaker. The two of them slipped into their old...bodies, as if nothing went amiss in the first place, but the proof of things going amiss is both skin deep and not. _Contradictions_. Fleur has a scar from an accident that may never come. _Impossibilities and inconsistencies, starting with what I **wanted**_...

The Laws of Magic bend for no witch, not even if she begs for it, not even if she prays for it. Fleur knows better than that, but for now it seems the rulebook, along with the clock, have flown out unceremoniously from the window. Then again, she reasons, trying to take a more accurate stock, the Time-Turner is _broken_. Could that have anything to do with it? Have Fleur and Hermione dodged a nasty outcome, or is it...is it on the way?

Gloominess swallows up that reasonable part of Fleur in a flash, leaving her as grim as a Hogwarts gargoyle. This morning, Fleur had left the Hospital Wing in the early hours before breakfast, thinking of little but her possessions, the device at her throat, and a phantom ticking. Can their time actually run out? Will she and Hermione be drawn further backward, or forward instead, to the future her incompetence had left so mangled?

With a little more force than necessary, Fleur snaps her book shut, wrests another one free of the pile, and flips to the first page.

In the foreword of a book about retrocausality, an Unspeakable for once has much to say. _Just as the human mind cannot comprehend time_ , Saul Croaker writes, worsening Fleur's budding fears, _it cannot comprehend the damage that will ensue if we presume to tamper with its laws..._

Eloise Mintumble survived for nearly a week, Fleur seems to recall, unable to rid her thoughts of their own new shadow of desperation. _Can we_?

Fortunately, a distraction arrives before she works herself up into a panic. Worries of bad outcomes will just have to wait for her in the dark.

"Doing a bit of light reading?"

Hermione sits down as Fleur's flipping through _A Brief History of Time_ , arms laden with parchment. Notes, Fleur observes, and lots of them.

"Not quite," Fleur admits, glad to set Hawking's work aside for now. "I am...theenking in circles." Thinking in circles with no Point-Me spell to steer away each worry. She does not enjoy the additional layer of uncertainty that will increasingly distinguish her second Tournament from the first one.

"Join me in History of Magic, you won't think much at all."

Before she's aware of it, before she's put all her fears under lock and key, Fleur is smiling. "Ze class with ze—ah, _ghost_?"

"Yes. Harry and Ron never pay attention, then ask me right before an exam to copy my notes. Professor Binns has no idea."

Shaking her head, Hermione stows her notes away and retrieves a Charms textbook, a new leaf of parchment, and a quill. Fleur watches her for awhile, only remembering that Hermione hoped to talk to her when it becomes apparent the fussing with her supplies is a play for time. More dallying, Fleur realizes, marking her place in Hawking's pages with a finger and clearing her throat. "You 'oped to speak with me earlier," she says.

"Er, right." Just as Fleur decides to put her foot down and demand an answer after suffering through another awkward silence, Hermione continues. "When you left the Hospital Wing, I started thinking..." (Now Fleur is forced to wonder if Hermione ever stops thinking.) "And I changed my mind."

"About...about _zis_?"

Has Hermione succumbed to cold feet? It would be a shame, a pain, and so frightening to remain the only one aware of the coming horrors, but if Hermione can't commit to their lark of danger and shortsighted foolishness...so be it, Fleur will go at it alone, face everything bravely, and—

"No!" Horrified, Hermione lowers her voice. "No, about...about right now. About my _appearances_ idea."

"Elaborate," Fleur orders.

"Things don't need to be _exactly_ the same," Hermione says, finally, accidentally shredding a piece of her parchment. Fleur gazes at the rip instead of Hermione, hoping to spur the conversation forward into more intelligible waters. "I mean, I wouldn't mind if...if _some_ things were different." Giving Fleur a glimpse of her usual daring, albeit in its early stages, Hermione barrels on. "This time, I thought you and I could be...friends."

Losing patience, Fleur prods at the presumption, a bit lost. She certainly wouldn't call Hermione an _enemy_. "Aren't we?"

"No, we aren't." Hermione heaves a great sigh. "Look, I don't make friends easily, Fleur. I never have. I'm loud and pushy and...too much. Harry and Ron had to save me from a troll before we started getting closer." A troll? Hermione doesn't clarify, disappointing Fleur immensely. "But we're—we're so _different_ now," she goes on, imploring again. Below the appeal, Fleur wonders if she is imagining the dread in Hermione's expression. "You and I know so many things about the future that I may shout them out any second. If I don't have you to talk to about it all, I'll go barking mad."

"You want...a confidante."

Her resolve is weakening. Hermione's nervousness is distracting. She cannot think of a reason—not even an unfeeling or petty one—to refuse.

"Yes."

Now Fleur plays for time, unable to believe her ears. "You never did warm to me, 'Ermione." _And I never warmed to you_. While Fleur's respect for Harry grew after the Second Task, her interest in his friends did not. Ron stared like all the other boys, and Hermione glared like all the other girls.

"That was before."

They did not get on at Hogwarts, nor in Grimmauld Place, but all of that lies before the Department of Mysteries, an end in itself until Fleur and Hermione spun the hourglass and rewrote the whole book instead of omitting its last chapter. Another chance to be better, Fleur had thought, eager to rewrite the narrative. It's a fair point, because despite their agreement to behave in the manners that are most familiar to them, they are not quite the same anymore. Fleur's eyes opened to a larger, more frightening world after Harry escaped the maze, clutching the Triwizard Cup in one hand and Cedric in the other. Hermione's loyalty to Harry drew her into danger again and again, dragging opportunities for disaster ever closer.

 _Is it so wrong_ , Fleur wonders, considers, and concludes, _to seek a rapport with the only other person in the world who can understand you_?

Mistaking Fleur's silence for rejection, Hermione jumps to her feet, aghast, only for Fleur to huff and push Hermione back down into her seat.

"I will be your friend, 'Ermione, if you promise not to storm off!" Fleur warns, watching Hermione's cheeks bypass red for a blotchy maroon.

"Well, if you _insist_...?"

Fleur laughs before she knows it, losing her place in the book as she claps a hand to her mouth. "I insist," she whispers, again mindful of Pince. Hermione spares her a rueful, relieved grin. Fleur's relieved, too. If she was forced to navigate the mission alone, she doubts it'd go well at all.

"Walk me to dinner?" Hermione suggests, still a bit red. She glances at her watch and studies the face, frowning and tapping her nail on the glass. The watch looks frozen, just like Fleur's. Unlike Fleur herself, however, Hermione has slipped back into the routine of her fourth year seamlessly.

Unwilling to shatter their fragile, timid accord over a rather telling failure of timekeeping, Fleur agrees, and leaves the books behind...for now.

* * *

When Fleur rejoins the Beauxbatons party at suppertime, Edgar leans over to whisper in her ear, a look of intrigue on his features.

"That's twice in one day I've seen you with that Granger girl...what's going on, Fleur?"

"It's a secret," Fleur lies, smothering her sudden flare of panic behind a gulp of pumpkin juice. They _still_ have many things to discuss—namely, how to maintain said supposed appearances and acceptable behaviors. They have yet to touch the subjects of 'Alastor Moody', the Tasks, and Cedric.

"Come on, I can keep it. Try me."

"No, you can't. I know it was you that set off the Dungbombs in the parlor last week," she accuses, smiling to soothe the sting out of it.

Edgar has the grace to grin, sheepish. "Manon claimed all the bloody credit anyway, so what does that matter?"

Slipping back into old routines is strange but not impossible. Fleur remembers enough to get along and genuinely likes the chance to be among friends again, but she can't quite shake the feeling of being a step ahead...meters ahead, actually, and forced to wait for everyone else to catch up.

It is the out of sorts feeling, she realizes, from the morning. Even with her attempt at research, her good _try_ of settling in, she still hasn't acclimated. Parts of the day—the place, the people—still seem dreamlike, like the past isn't happening at all. Sometimes, in the small moments between remembering what to say and what to do, Fleur feels like the ghost in the Hall of Prophecy again, walking the aisles alongside the swirling orbs, alone and unpredicted. If she doesn't have a stored prophecy of her own on the shelves, will anything she does now—or then—truly _matter_?

Fleur levels him with a look, admitting nothing, thoughts elsewhere.

Catching her name in the air, Manon sits down on Fleur's other side, smugness rolling off her shoulders in waves.

"Guess who just asked me to the Ball?"

"Your Imp Prince," Edgar suggests. "A trickster," he adds for their benefit, flaunting his exemplary grades in his Muggle Literature practicum.

"George Weasley." All aflutter, Manon adopts a dreamy expression. Edgar mimes a swoon. Fleur laughs. _Merlin, I've missed them..._

"How do you tell them apart?" She has to ask, ladling soup for the three of them into bowls. Somehow Bill never confused one for the other, Fleur had learned as they pored over complex calculations in a collaboration between Gringotts and the Ministry. "Are you sure it wasn't the other—Fred?"

"George is sweeter. He was _very_ impressed with my Cantis Jinx on Cassius Warrington..."

Fleur lets the conversation continue on without her, preferring to just listen and eat. She's sure she already heard about Manon and George in the past, but hearing it a second time is more of a novelty than a nuisance. In all her haste to start her new life in Britain, Fleur allowed a distance to grow between herself and friends, never once thinking that calamity would pull her even beyond the breadth than she intended. Now that she and Hermione are so much farther afield than they thought possible, it make Fleur again wonder...are they missing in the— _their_ —present, or has the future been erased? Will Fleur be forced to rewrite her friendships now, or repair them all later, in a world built from their efforts to save the boys?

Thinking quickly, she dives into her bag for a spare bit of parchment. Under the table, Fleur points her wand at the surface and charms a message to appear only if certain hands are to open it, hoping the spell for interdepartmental memos will work outside of her (now lost) office. The message curls up in her palm, scuttles down her leg like a spider, and darts out of sight. Over Céline's shoulder, Fleur searches the Gryffindor table until she spots Hermione and returns her wand to her pocket. Watching Hermione startle and look down at her lap, Fleur waits impatiently for the answer.

Hermione locates Fleur with her eyes, nods once, and returns to her conversation with Ginny.

In her relief, though, Fleur still startles at the nudge to her ribs. Much like his owl, Maximilian, Edgar misses little.

"Writing to dear Mister Davies?"

Roger is already looking and reddening when Fleur glances down the bench. "Maybe," she says vaguely, just to needle a snickering Edgar again.

" _I_ hear he's plucking up the courage to ask you to the Ball."

"If he can ask me without blushing _or_ stammering," Fleur counters with another arch smile, rising with the rest at the end of the meal, "he has a chance." Roger hadn't asked her until next week, if Fleur remembers correctly. She's curious to know if everything will remain the same a second time, or if small differences will pile up thanks to her and Hermione. Don't Muggles have a phrase for that—the Moth Effect? "Who are _you_ asking?"

With everything that Fleur intends to keep straight, she supposes she has to reconcile with not remembering these countless small matters.

"Just me," Céline chimes in during the bustle to exit the Great Hall, linking arms with Edgar. "He saved me from going with Artem Poliakoff."

"He still had food in his mouth and all over his robes when he asked," Edgar explains as Fleur tries to stop giggling, "and Pucey shot me down."

That does the trick. The dating pool for Edgar is half the size of Fleur's, and considerably less occupied outside of Beauxbatons.

"I know just the man for you," Fleur assures him, sobering and kissing Edgar's cheek consolingly. "He'll be at Hogwarts by the Third Task."

While Céline gives a teasing _ooh_ and Edgar's sunny grin comes back, Fleur catches sight of Hermione in the Entrance Hall, loitering furtively beside one of the great stone torches near the staircase. With a quick word, Fleur excuses herself and hastens to meet Hermione in the middle of the floor.

 _Another difference_. She never spoke to Hermione last time. Now Fleur can't help feel like she's playing a potent game of Exploding Snap.

"What's so urgent?" Hermione whispers, taking no notice of the group of students sauntering nearer, bedecked in green. "I was worried..."

All Fleur can think of now is that Muggle chaotic moth theory and Croaker's dire warnings about interference. Both are sitting badly in her stomach along with the soup, making her earlier sense of being anchored here feel slack, almost feeble. As if it's following her mood and erratic concentration and advising against getting comfortable, the Turner's growing hot again. Fleur bites back a huff of frustration, unwilling to be misunderstood or let her temper get the better of her. "There is much we must discuss, 'Ermione, and I'm afraid eet should not wait any longer—"

"If you want a better conversationalist than a Mudblood like her, Fleur," a passing Draco Malfoy interrupts with a sneer, "don't hesitate to ask us."

Hermione stiffens. Chortling amongst themselves for reaching a bar well below sophomoric humor, the Slytherins wander away.

Fleur glares after him, seeing his horrid father in every one of his steps, the same father that saw Harry in the graveyard with You-Know-Who, and the man who led the attack on the Department of Mysteries...and then she makes a decision, a difference that never crossed her mind in the past.

(In the interests of collaboration, expediency, and friendship, because _this_ , Fleur knows, will matter.)

" _Citrouillétafors_!"

Fleur's jinx hits Malfoy in the back, forcing him to stumble forward like a drunk and cradle the enormous pumpkin that has replaced his head.

The hall explodes with laughter. Hermione gasps. In the distance, Céline and Edgar are leaning against the door for support, utterly delighted.

"DELACOUR!"

Tucking her wand back into her robes, Fleur looks around, searching for the voice over the din of Malfoy's friends struggling to get him up the stairs to the Hospital Wing and the guffaws from the crowd. Professor Snape stands in the threshold of the Great Hall, beckoning with one finger.

Hermione offers a tiny groan from behind her hand, just as she did in the Hall of Prophecy after Harry spoke so rashly to Bellatrix Lestrange.

_Well..._

"You shouldn't have done that," Hermione mutters through her fingers, sounding torn between disapproval and pure glee. Fleur shrugs.

"Monsieur Malfoy should learn better manners," she answers, tired and imprudent and angry, patting Hermione on the arm. "Until Saturday, zen?"

Hermione lowers her hand, a little starry-eyed now. "If you survive Snape..." she ventures, braver. "Let's meet on the grounds around, er— _nine_?"

Unperturbed by the warning, Fleur nods, tosses a wave of farewell at Edgar and Céline, and strides over to Snape, heels clicking across the floor.

"Another night's detention, I think," Snape declares softly as she approaches, albeit taking her sweet time to reach him. If she will be hanged for a dragon as an egg, she will delay, delay, delay it. "Funny," he adds, wearing his coldest smile, "I had expected more from a Triwizard champion..."

"Je suis désolé, Professor," Fleur answers, the new epitome of serenity. She indicates the stairway to the dungeons, smiling back as irreverently as she dares. Only she will know it to be a grimace of pain as the Time-Turner burns out like a match and vanishes from her throat again. "Shall we?"

 _Some things can stay the same_ , Fleur decides with renewed purpose, bracing herself for a fallout, _but others won't._ She'll make damn sure of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting the third chapter written was so difficult for me (you just read the _eighth_ version and it was a thousand words less than I wanted) but I think I'm finally okay with the results and the small plot movements. Thank you so much for checking it out!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware, many walls of text ahead.

After a long evening of extracting the slime from billywig stings without gloves, no one was more relieved than Fleur to get to the weekend.

She was no better off in her dreams than in detention, however. Fleur fell and fell and fell with no end in sight, lacking a veela's wings to right herself in the air. Fleur finally gave up on rest when she heard the cries of the gamekeeper's roosters and resigned herself to a long, drowsy day.

While Céline sleeps the morning away, Fleur packs. A gift from her father, her old rucksack's Undetectable Extension Charm (thanks to France's more...permissive stance on private ownership) will suit her and Hermione's purposes well. In the rucksack's already brimming nooks and crannies, Fleur stores the golden egg, the research borrowed from the castle's library that she doubled back to get, some of her books from Beauxbatons, the wands stolen from Mulciber and Avery in the Hall of Prophecy, the last of Hermione's sweets, a kettle, and her aunt Ninette's beloved teapot.

Fleur keeps the Time-Turner around her neck, however, far too reluctant to let it out of her reach.

At breakfast, as Henry goads Charles into trying the boudin noir, Edgar inquires into her weekend plans.

”Solving my riddle.” Truthfully, she hadn’t bothered last time until after the new year, but she intends to wring every bit of opportunity that the egg can provide to plan out the coming months with Hermione. Fleur hopes not even Madame Maxime would challenge such a ready made excuse.

”Join us next weekend, please? If Hugo waxes poetic about Giselle for one more minute, I'll walk into the Forbidden Forest and never come back.”

Fleur promises to do her best.

Just before nine, Fleur steps into the cold, bundled up in Muggle clothes and a pair of good boots. She's barely out of the Entrance Hall when she realizes she has a shadow. Streaking across the snow, Crookshanks darts ahead of her like a hinkypunk in a marsh, drawing Fleur farther and farther from the castle to where his mistress must already be waiting. _Punctual_ , Fleur notes, committing that to memory, _and a planner_. They hadn't decided where to meet before Fleur followed Snape to the dungeons. "Slow down, please," she murmurs, descending a hill and listening to the jangling from her rucksack. "Auntie will kill me if I destroy that teapot..." Supposedly it belonged to Madame de Sévigné, but Fleur remains dubious.

The Whomping Willow is flicking ice off itself as Crookshanks scurries to and fro, evading roots and flying limbs until he reaches the trunk. To Fleur's astonishment, Crookshanks claws at the knot in the center without prompting, then ducks out of view. Lighting her wand and shaking her head, Fleur climbs into the tunnel behind the cat, grateful for the residual Warming Charms that reveal Hermione's recent progress into the Shrieking Shack. Magicked warmth or not, Fleur nonetheless has a feeling the day will only grow colder from here on out; the sky looked gloomy along the Great Hall's ceiling as the post arrived, and the air beyond the walls reeked like a biting rain when Fleur dared to venture outside again.

Crookshanks is inspecting the exposed paneling when Fleur enters the decrepit parlor. Hermione, predictably, has her nose buried in a book.

"Salut," Fleur greets at the end of a yawn, depositing her bag on the floor and conjuring a blanket from the stores within to sit on.

"Morning, Fleur."

Extricating the kettle, the teapot, and the tea leaves, Fleur conjures some water to boil and starts emptying the rest of the rucksack. She sets the stolen wands in arm's reach, the golden egg at the corner of the blanket, and arranges the books into piles. Once the tea is ready, Fleur passes off the first cup to a pacing, absentminded Hermione, surprised to discover she is—in the midst of the mindless preparation—missing Adrian and Leslie. (Afternoon tea was sacrosanct to these Curse-Breakers, Fleur soon learned.) Though not perfect, they were the first people in the Ministry not to know her by way of Beauxbatons or the Triwizard Tournament, as well as the first adults after Albus Dumbledore to treat Fleur as an equal, like someone worthy of their confidence. Her first older and more _worldly_ friends, however ordinary and charmingly mundane they were (are). After Leslie and Adrian came Bill, amused by her admiration of his style, then Tonks, then Kingsley, then Sage Bragnam, then Russ— _Cerberus_ Langarm...

"Shall we get started?" Hermione asks as Crookshanks drapes himself unhelpfully atop _Mintumble's Mishap_. Eager to get answers, Fleur agrees.

They go over with what they know. After receiving a false vision of Sirius Black from You-Know-Who, Harry and the others flew to London on thestrals. As soon as he could, Severus Snape sent a warning to Fleur, who arrived in the Hall of Prophecy only minutes before the battle began. In spite of all efforts to the contrary, the Order suffered grievous losses that even Hermione can't bring herself to repeat, so Fleur changes the subject.

"Zat belongs to Avery," Fleur explains as Hermione examines the plunder, looking curious, "and zat one belongs to Mulciber."

Hermione weighs Mulciber's wand as intently as Ollivander weighed Fleur's, brow creased in thought. "I'm of two minds," she says at last, "or three."

"Ze left head, I 'ope," Fleur ventures, trying to decide where Harry and Ron fit into her absurd runespoor metaphor. Hermione pays her no heed.

"I suppose the theories depend on what the wands _mean_ to us..." she mutters, setting one parallel to the other. Patience fraying thin, Fleur returns her teacup to its saucer, waiting for Hermione to grant her the favor of her attention. "They're proof of something, but of _what_? Or, rather, which?"

"Which, _what_?"

So much for waiting. Searching for the patience that allowed her to crack open so many curses, Fleur resolves to hold her tongue.

Hermione pries the book out from under Crookshanks, who slinks away. "I'm getting to that," Hermione replies, a new briskness entering her voice. She pulls Fleur's research closer to her side. "Let's start again. We need to consider all the aspects of time and time travel before we can move on."

Only a little regretful to snap at her new friend, Fleur nods, wishing she'd brought along a pot of coffee instead.

"Time magic, as you know and read, is unstable," Hermione reels off, pointedly deaf to Fleur's impatience. "It's as complex and strong as our own everyday sort, but it also tends to offer more problems than solutions. When Eloise Mintumble went back in time, things went wrong very quickly. Her presence in 1402 made...shall I say 'waves'? From what she described to the Healers in St. Mungo's, everyone Mintumble had spoken to, helped, or hated was affected by her existence and engulfed in these waves. This was before the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, so she may have helped or harmed Muggles during her stay, too, only to vanish from their lives when she was needed. They only got so much from her before she died, but the descendants of these friends and enemies eventually disappeared and were never seen again. The only reason _we_ know of the changes is in part due to the Ministry's defensive spells, the impenetrability of the Department of Mysteries, and their own Quill of Recounting."

"The un-born," Fleur supplies politely. Uneasily.

"That's right. With every new 'wave' of Mintumble's choices, life paths were radically changed. Professor Croaker suggested Mintumble might've cured a wizard or a witch from an illness that was meant to kill them, or mediated feuds that ended differently. If a witch didn't die and went on to marry a suitor who formerly was married someone else in a rewritten timeline, then the descendants of the original family were lost." Hermione pauses for breath and a gulp of tea. "Xavier Rastrick was another potential victim, since the Ministry's experimentation with time only ended in 1899. These wands," she adds, gesturing with her free hand, "are proof of something, but it isn't clear which theory of time travel they support yet."

"But you 'ave your suspicions."

"I do. The problem with time travel, however, is that goes against logic."

"Muggle logic," Fleur observes. Hawking's words on quantum mechanics and general relativity made her head spin.

" _Logic_ ," says Hermione, sternly. "Traveling through time, even with magic, goes against the rules of...creation, I suppose. Life, if you think of life and time and reality as straight lines, of course, as most do. Our understanding of cause and effect only goes in one direction, but time travel throws us for a loop, if you pardon the pun. But let's get back to the wands again. Both stayed on your person after the battle. Everything we had on us, in our hands, in our heads, all of it tagged along for the ride to the past. That might very well prove we are in a fixed timeline, or it might not."

"Explain," Fleur orders, then adds after Hermione shoots her a look, "please. Explain what you mean by 'fixed', 'Ermione."

"Remember, this is just a theory, but if we were living in a fixed timeline, then the future can't be changed." Gratified by Fleur's alarmed expression and renewed scrutiny, Hermione presses on. "Everything we tried to stop would happen anyway, regardless of our meddling. Essentially," Hermione continues, "all fate is predestined, none of us can fight it, and every action, no matter what the circumstances, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Going back to the past _makes_ the future we're trying to prevent. If we tried to change the outcome of, say, the First Wizarding War, all the things we wanted to prevent would just happen anyway, only differently. If you or I somehow managed to kill Lord Voldemort in 1981"—Fleur recoils—"and then tried to return to the new and improved future, we'd only find another wizard getting called You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, not Tom Riddle. Or, alternatively, everything we did to stop Voldemort would just make him into the monster he is today...are you still with me?"

Barely. "Yes."

"That also must make you wonder if there's a greater plan of the universe if things don't go our way, doesn't it?"

Perhaps she was right to wonder if Hermione Granger ever stops thinking. "Ah..." Fleur tries, nonplussed.

"Depending on who or what you _believe_ in, that is. For the sake of the argument, let's reserve judgment on higher powers for now, all right?"

"Right," Fleur murmurs, in no mood to discuss hitherto unsaid religious beliefs.

"To put it in more urgent and familiar conditions, our meddling with the Triwizard Tournament would still end with Cedric's death, and our future would stay on the same path," says Hermione, now sounding as apprehensive as Fleur feels. "Here is where the trickiness of paradoxes comes in."

These Fleur knows. "Contradictions and inconsistencies."

"Yes, but I think you and I are safe from a paradox, at least for now. If there was a paradox at play," Hermione opines, "I'm sure I would've noticed any unusual events going on around _me_ in my fourth year without an explanation in hindsight. When Harry and I used a Time-Turner to save Sirius and Buckbeak, things attributed to coincidence happened _because_ of us. A rock smashed a jar, Harry saw his father, that sort of thing. It was only later that we realized it was _me_ who threw a rock to get our attention, and it was _another_ Harry casting the Patronus Charm, not his father."

"Ze future caused ze past," Fleur says, following along, though the idea isn't at all appealing. Fleur answered the Order's call once before and it was a disaster. Coming back to the past to guarantee a miserable future is the last thing she wants. What does it offer to them, anyway? Are she and Hermione doomed to repeat the same journey to 1994 over and over again, forever, and gain nothing from each jump but Sisyphean grief?

"Right!" Hermione brightens. "But here's the difference—I've got it all figured out. To stop the battle, we just need to move the prophecy."

 _Oh, is that all_?

Fleur shouldn't feel so surprised. Hermione gets to the heart of the matter first, like the suggestion to contact Sirius.

"Prophecies can only be recovered by ze one about whom zey are made." Fleur watches Hermione's enthusiasm dim, bit by bit.

"Well, we can just ask Professor Dumbledore to bring Harry to get it—"

 _Another conundrum_. Instead of closing doors to their problems, Hermione is opening them. Duplicating them. _Complicating_ them.

A difficult conversation, and best avoided for the moment. "Go back to ze minds," Fleur interrupts, smelling an argument brewing in the air like rain. She has her suspicions about how that discussion would end, and none are good. "I want to understand before we go on to our...plans."

Hermione's irritation colors every one of her words, but she complies. "The second 'mind' is a dynamic timeline. This theory suggests altering the past does affect the present, and it's instantaneous. Us, the travelers, control more than we think, but the consequences are severe and there's little room for error. If you went back in time and killed your grandmother"—Fleur glares at that, though Hermione only rolls her eyes—"your own birth would never happen, and neither would the infamous trip back in time, but if you never go back in time, your grandmother never dies, until..."

"Ze traveler is born again," says Fleur, remembering, "and a paradox is created."

"I believe these wands can be proof of any timeline, especially a dynamic one," Hermione adds, frowning, but she doesn't sound totally sure. "If they begin to disappear, we'll know our actions will prevent the battle from happening in the first place. We'll be rewriting the old timeline, literally."

"Zat sounds better," Fleur wagers.

"In some respects, yes..." Hermione is grim now. "If our actions are so influential, though, we will be _overwriting_ our own purpose for going into the past, therefore removing the broken Time-Turner from existence. That's the paradox, I expect. By changing the past to avert the future, we would never need go into the past at all, but we did and have. It worked _and_ it didn't, because we erased our past selves, hence the...er, contradictions..."

Are Fleur's eyes crossing? This is more complicated than she thought.

"Oui..." she sighs, pausing. "So...our actions to save ze future can be... _monitored_ by ze stolen wands."

Their bodies and wands are living links between points, per Hermione, but Fleur wonders if they better resemble fossils, or relics of a bygone day.

"Yes, but I have a suspicion about our situation," Hermione hastens to add, looking a bit frazzled and desperate to keep the conversation alive, "and it's neither fixed nor dynamic. I think, based on what we managed to do so far and what we want to do, is that we've created an alternate timeline."

The third mind, Fleur muses, weary. "Can you—?"

"I can. In an alternate universe, things like the Laws of Magic, for instance, can be very different. Our lives can be different. Given the fact that we erased ourselves from this year," Hermione explains, "everything that we know and did is the same. There are no bizarre changes to the world, or evil twins, or absurd what-ifs of history made real, or such things you would read in the most fantastical pieces of Muggle literature. This is an alternate _timeline_ , which is identical to the other apart from its soon-to-come point—or points!—of divergence. The only changes that I can see are our knowledge of the other...life, or timeline if you prefer, and our intentions to change the outcome of the Tournament. If we change the ending, which is to say that Cedric will _not_ be murdered, then hopefully the future will be drastically different than...than the one you and I are from."

"But...?" Fleur prompts, waiting.

"Remember," Hermione goes on, "the timeline has diverged, or will diverge. Us, the travelers, can do anything we want with impunity, but our actions only affect the timeline we are now in. Say you did feel homicidal, went back far enough without hurting yourself, and succeeded in killing your grandmother before she could start a family—oh, stop scowling, it's only an example. Nothing would happen. A new timeline would simply be created _without_ you in it, while the original is unaffected, as it must exist to give you a reason to travel to another. You would just be someone without an identity, a stranger in a strange land without any connections. The problem with an alternate timeline, however, is that it's..." Hermione's words speed up and combine into a single chain, forcing Fleur to parse each link out, one at a time. "It's impossible to return to your old one."

 _Remember, this is just a theory_...

Fleur mulls over the answers in silence, fidgeting with the chain of the Time-Turner. It is not as much of a surprise as she anticipated, having felt a gnawing fear of that very result since she and Hermione arrived, but now the possibilities of failure and loss are looming. They're stuck? _Yes and no_. Their actions leave little room for error...or perhaps their actions will ensure the rise of You-Know-Who? They can't go back—wait, _forward_ —without injury? Must Fleur consider special relativity, Albert Einstein, and _spacetime_? And where does the Time-Turner fit into the discussion?

The last time Fleur felt like her brain was spewing so spectacularly out of her ears, she was fighting Death Eaters. Or, possibly, sitting the O.W.L.s.

Today marks the third day of their expedition, which presents the coming Monday as worse than a usual Monday if that will mean bouncing forward and dying of extreme old age in St. Mungo's. _Merlin_ , she thinks, sulkily, _if I spent my last weekend alive drinking tea and poring over textbooks..._

In the end, Fleur opts for honesty.

"Zis is...des ordures. Rubbish."

Hollow-eyed and wan, Hermione seems to feel no better about everything. "Yeah."

Gazing into the dregs of her cup, Fleur asks the first question that comes to mind, starting off small. "If ze wands _don't_ disappear, zen what?"

"What? Oh." Hermione blinks and makes a valiant effort to resume her guesswork. "Either the wands were overwritten, like our past selves, establishing a fixed timeline and a _long_ wait between the end of the paradox and the beginning...or the wands possess identical copies, with Mulciber and Avery still wielding them." Hermione pauses, presumably imagining, as Fleur is, Mulciber and Avery's doings in the months before their master returns to life. "These ones are...leftovers, like us. Strangers in a strange land, carried from one timeline to the next by sheer luck."

Caught between a hippogriff and the cliff, as the saying goes. Fixed or alternate. Old or new. Fleur is in no mood to puzzle everything out again.

"Wouldn't eet be best to learn ze wands were overwritten?" Fleur asks absently. "Two Death Eaters would be, ah—disadvantaged."

By the subtle laws, the wands are now Fleur's. Neither feel as comfortable as her own, but there is a grudging subservience to both of them, like students sent to the front of the class to write lines. The wands may very well bend to her will if she demanded it, though Fleur hopes never to see that day. Her grandmother would know more about the finer details of wandlore, though, and look so unhappy to see her dearest gift abandoned.

"I don't know." For Hermione, it sounds like a pained admission. Yesterday, Fleur might've even laughed about it.

Fleur sighs again, unable to recall a day in her life—old or new—where magic felt both stifling and perilous, all at once.

 _Speaking of perilous magic_...

Still a bit lost, Fleur returns her cup to its saucer, unclasps the Turner from her throat, and makes an ungainly change of subject, electing to finally let Hermione in on the secret, for better or worse. "Eet may be impossible to go home with zis." Hermione's eyes follow the Time-Turner as Fleur bewitches it to hover in the air between them. Revolving like planets in an orrery, the hourglass spills sand onto the blanket, one grain at a time, luring Crookshanks back into the room to get a sniff. "Whichever... _land_ we are in now, 'Ermione, I do not know if we can travel back home safely."

"Time-Turners aren't designed to move forward, Fleur," Hermione says, very quietly.

"But zere is a chance zey could." Fleur cannot interpret Hermione's expression. "What about Madam Mintumble? Ze research _shows_ she returned—"

Fleur breaks off as Crookshanks hisses in alarm, drawing their eyes back to the Time-Turner. It flips and flips and flips and finally, disappears.

"This has been doing..." Hermione manages, voice hushed, features very pale.

"Since we arrived," Fleur admits. "I did not weesh to say so without research, but you know more zan I on ze subject. Eet was foolish to 'ide it."

Hermione swears under her breath, which, suffice to say, is an understatement.

Fleur can't help but feel like her hopes come and go like the Time-Turner itself, poised so delicately on the head of a pin that wobbles at three minute intervals. "I theenk we are stranded, 'Ermione," she confesses, reiterating a fact that hovered at the edges of every conversation since Thursday. They _had_ agreed on the reward, after all—saving the boys and ensuring a better middle for them rather than unhappy ends. Fleur just...hadn't anticipated _staying_ in the past after changing it, despite her attempts at acclimation and her promise to be Hermione's friend 'this time around'. They had overshot her wish by six months, and a part of Fleur had hoped the Time-Turner would correct that mistake without hurting them. If only they could've plucked Cedric from the graveyard in Little Hangleton, dropped him off at the pitch, and made their way home...

Cedric _and_ Harry, Fleur corrects herself, stricken. Perish the thought of abandoning Harry at his darkest hour.

"Stranded until we 'catch up' with our own history in 1996," Hermione points out. "After that, it's anyone's guess."

Fleur can't imagine the scope of that altered future until she sees it for herself. "Zat is a long way away, 'Ermione. Many zings could go wrong."

Hermione waves her off, stern again. "Forget that for now. I'm concerned with the Time-Turner. It's too dangerous for you to wear anymore."

"Where else am I going to put eet?" Fleur must ask. "Eet could be stolen."

"We could take turns wearing—"

" _No_. If something 'appened to me, you must finish what we started." Fleur can be removed from Harry's side with ease, but Hermione cannot.

Hermione frowns, weighing her strategy. "If something happened to you, Fleur, I'd follow. Things would warp around us, the strangers."

"Maybe," Fleur argues, "but your books are 'ypothetical! Nothing 'as yet been proven, and all zat is was documented by ze Ministries. Our journey 'as made 'istory by permitting us to go back zis far without repercussions. We can't let anyone know I 'ave zis, and the only way is to wear eet."

"I'm sorry, are you suggesting we _ignore_ the chance that you could _die_ while wearing that stupid—" Hermione watches the Time-Turner return, filling the air with ice. Huffily, she restrains Crookshanks, keeping him from leaping toward the device, claws outstretched. "—that stupid thing?"

"You nearly die every year!" Fleur bursts out, getting angrier now, Hermione not far behind. "You said so yourself! Eet is no different!"

"The impact was _much_ smaller," Hermione snaps, eyes flashing. "Not even Lord Voldemort could manipulate reality."

"Not yet!" Hermione's problem, Fleur irritably decides, was that she lacked vision. She is not the left head of the runespoor, the clever planner, or the middle head, the dreamer and visionary. No, Fleur concludes, meanly, Hermione is the right head, the critic, the head of the snake that is usually bitten off when the former two are chastised too much. "I remember 'Arry said in zat _Quibbler_ article that You-Know-Oo went...went 'further than anybody on ze path to immortality'," Fleur fumes, "so what will stop 'im from trying to next alter reality to achieve 'is twisted goals—"

"Immortality is not the same as manipulating the Laws of Magic! Even your sister would know that, now you've gone completely _past_ the point—!"

"You don't know what 'e will do after we stop 'im!" Fleur yells, upending her tea. "Zis talk is worthless, 'Ermione. Our journey 'as already broken ze rules, so you must leave your logic at ze door and proceed on faith! Is zat _at all_ possible for you, or are you unable to theenk outside of ze box?"

"Wizards who lack logic do things like use broken Time-Turners!" Hermione shouts back, scrambling to her feet as Crookshanks escapes her arms. Fleur snatches the Time-Turner out of the air, earning a hiss for her troubles. "We can't abandon _all_ logic, what sort of _sense_ would that make?"

"No sense!" Fleur means to snarl, no longer exactly sure what her point was, nor Hermione's, but stops speaking at the sound of whistling.

"Your Scottish wind," she snaps out in a fury, but Hermione isn't listening. She's dived for her own schoolbag, and is tossing things over each shoulder until she locates the source of the noise. Triumphant, Hermione holds out her palm for Fleur to see a whirring, shining Sneakoscope.

"Why—?"

Crookshanks and Hermione are studying the passageway now, the former with his hair standing on end and the latter with new alarm. "Someone's here, or near enough," Hermione whispers, hastily silencing the Sneakoscope and grabbing Fleur's hand, earlier anger forgotten. "Come on!"

They run down the passageway and into the tunnel, wands aloft, boots clattering on the stone. The trip back to the Whomping Willow feels much shorter, thanks to the dread that seems to be chasing them. Who is near enough, Fleur is forced to wonder, to alert the smallest of Dark Detectors?

Hermione is already hidden among the roots when Fleur catches up. Together, they peer into the rain and spot a familiar figure in the brush.

"...doesn't know what kind of danger we're in," Karkaroff is mumbling to himself, looking like a drowned man in the ongoing storm. "The fool..."

"He must be talking about Snape," Hermione whispers, her breath tickling Fleur's throat.

"Once a Death Eater..." Fleur whispers back, eyeing Karkaroff with contempt. The roots above them creak and stretch threateningly in his direction.

"We need to Confund him." Fleur's confusion wilts under Hermione's glare. Not so forgotten anger, then. "He'll see our footprints in the snow!"

Still sour from their argument, Fleur scowls and complies. Squinting into the deluge, Fleur aims, flicks her wand, and thinks, _Confundo_!

Karkaroff gives a full body shiver, then looks confusedly around in the rain. After a long moment, he shambles away, muttering.

Fleur sighs in relief.

"That was close," Hermione breathes out, sinking down onto one of the earthen steps.

"Where is Karkaroff now?" Fleur asks, watching Karkaroff's figure growing smaller and smaller on the horizon. "In our time. I do not recall."

"On the run. He fled on the night of the Third Task."

"But why?" Fleur asks, wracking her brain. "Was 'e— _involved_?" Madame Maxime warned her away many men, Moody and Karkaroff included.

"No," says Hermione, weary, "but Karkaroff and Snape's brands were darkening all year. He was afraid of Voldemort growing stronger."

"But Snape was not." Snape never feared anything, as far as Fleur knew. In the Order meetings, he seldom reacted beyond giving a sneer.

"Neither was Crouch." The tense air returns, filling the passage with ice much like the Time-Turner's arrivals. "We haven't discussed Crouch, Fleur."

Gathering her sodden hair into a ponytail and clasping the Turner back around her neck again, Fleur purses her lips. "We should."

"Yeah. We're not finished."

 _We've yet to begin_ , Fleur muses, already exhausted, and then follows Hermione back down the passageway.

* * *

Their mutual disinterest over the summer in Grimmauld Place was always distant, but never angry.

For the sake of their fledgling...friendship, Fleur ignores it, although there is a sense of anticipation in the air, dogging the steps on the hike back into the Shrieking Shack. Unwilling to break the silence first, Fleur retrieves the sweets from her rucksack and arranges the pile on the blanket for them to share. Strangely, it's like they're making a go of peace talks with chilly diplomacy than trying to make sense of a nigh impossible event.

Then the gauntlet is thrown, and all bets are off.

"We need to be careful of Crouch," Hermione declares, practically daring Fleur to contradict her. "He's smarter than both of us put together."

"Not necessarily," says Fleur, sufficiently goaded and glaring right back. So much for her newfound, Order-bred maturity. "'E is nothing but a puppet. I will make short work of 'im." Long after Cedric had died and the news of Crouch impersonating Alastor Moody became public knowledge, Fleur wondered about all the times Crouch had Hogwarts completely at his mercy. Hundreds of students learned from him. Teachers discussed lessons with him. Even Dumbledore rubbed elbows with Barty Crouch Junior and saw no difference, no falseness. If she and Hermione know who lies beneath that craggy face, can the past be altered so significantly? Can Harry _not_ be summoned to the graveyard to see his nemesis rise again?

"Did you speak to him as often as we did?" Hermione demands in ringing, mocking tones. "Did you get a sense of what he is capable of? He helped torture Neville's parents and escaped Azkaban, if you didn't hear. But no, of course not, here you are, thinking you already know everything!"

"I do not know everything!" Fleur protests, stung. "But you zere you sit, discounting my experiences because you theenk _your own_ are better—"

Stopped by the fluttering of Hermione's hand, Fleur glowers. In the interim, Hermione has inhaled a breath so big that Fleur is forced to wonder if her heart will explode and her lungs will collapse, only for Hermione to simply...cave in on herself, losing the color in her cheeks and the angry look on her face like a charm that is quickly fading away. "Stop," she says, curtly, a little hoarser than usual. "Stop. Please. This is going nowhere."

"I'll say," Fleur mutters, resentful, despite a more reasonable part of her brain poring over the inanities of her own arguments, one after another.

A tic jumps in Hermione's cheek, but she's playing at magnanimity now, seemingly determined to steer the argument into safer waters.

"We can't do this. We can't get caught up in...in our tempers. We're here for a reason. Many reasons."

"You're right," Fleur relents, grudging. If Hermione can afford to lower the gauntlet, so can she. They can both cede an inch, at least. "I am sorry."

"Sorry."

A beat. She hopes such awkward silences are not a characteristic of Hermione's friendships, lest Fleur be forced to fill them with chatter.

Fleur tries to relax her shoulders, unsure of what to say until inspiration strikes. "I theenk..." Fleur begins, carefully, reviewing this and that of Hermione's theories, uncovering little sense and more unanswered questions, "that eet no longer matters 'ow we got 'ere, only zat we are 'ere."

Hermione nods, also cautious. She scoots a little from the stack of books, as if their influence will color her perception again.

"We are 'ere," Fleur adds, "and we 'ave a job to do. Zis danger with ze Time-Turner..." Fleur inclines her head, acknowledging Hermione's points. Good points. There is no doubting that. "Eet can wait until ze...uh, demiguise shows eetself, non?" She hopes the expression translates well.

"I'm not very happy with a 'wait and see'," Hermione admits, guarded again, "but that's okay. We can deal with whatever happens as it comes."

Some progress. More relief. A chance to pull away from seemingly unsolvable and complicated existential problems, which Fleur is glad to do.

"So be eet," Fleur ventures, thinking of their walk back to the castle on Thursday and Hermione's blustering disregard for the law. Lips twitching, Hermione draws her knees to her chest now, staring at the Time-Turner as it whirls out of existence, leaving a trail of steam near Fleur's ear. Flushing, Fleur fixes her jumper and hides the device from sight. The Notice-Me-Not Charm should keep their classmates from seeing anything.

"What's our next step?" She asks, trying to be gracious. If the future is again in a straight line, Fleur wishes to know where to place her feet.

"I...I want us to wait and see with Crouch as well," Hermione offers, her eyes hesitantly sliding back to Fleur. Knowing better than to jump to a conclusion, Fleur waits for an explanation. Perhaps wizards often do lack logic. "He's smarter than we give him credit for. You didn't hear from Harry what he did, but—but once I put it all back together again, it was so alarming. He's quicker on his feet than even Snape," says Hermione, looking rattled. "Snape makes you wait ages for his excuses, but Crouch thinks of it all on the fly. He tricked us into thinking the Barty Crouch on the Marauder's Map was his father. He manipulated Harry throughout the Tournament so he'd win—he manipulated the Goblet of Fire!" Hermione shakes her head, paler now. "He's powerful, Fleur. I wouldn't put it past him to have a contingency plan if he was discovered. Contingency _plans_."

Fleur recalls the green ray of light that hit Neville in the chest before anyone could react. "Crouch will kill," says Fleur, "to protect 'is secret."

"Yes. Or he'll spin an attack as self-defense. And he has Moody's eye." Hermione shivers. "I think he'd see us coming floors and floors away."

"So," Fleur guesses, "you do not want me to dispatch 'im."

"No," Hermione says, "but not for the reasons you might think. I know you're a good witch. I've seen it. Dumbledore wouldn't have asked you to join the Order of Phoenix if you weren't. The Goblet of Fire wouldn't have picked you if you weren't the best of Beauxbatons. But there is _always_ someone better, Fleur, and that one is Voldemort's right hand man. Who's to say that he wouldn't just...cut his losses and kidnap Harry early?"

Forced to choose between feeling unduly flattered and seeing reason, Fleur chooses reason. "I will leave 'im be," she relents, disappointed. There is wisdom to be found here. Let the puppet dance and keep up his pretense, she decides. She can cut the strings when opportunity knocks and the boys are safely returned to Hogwarts. Hermione's words kept a coldness in Fleur's skin, however. What if Crouch _does_ decide to hasten his plans?

 _He put Harry in the Tournament_ , the reasonable part of Fleur's brain muses. _He has no choice but to stay to ensure Harry's survival until June..._

If Fleur emerges from this new ordeal without needing a round of firewhiskeys, she will count herself on the luckier side of the draw.

Tentatively, they move into a negotiation stage. Hermione, Fleur discovers, argues like a fishmonger. Tempers simmer just below the surface, but Fleur is determined not to let hers boil over to the top. She suspects Hermione is doing the same thing, if only to keep them on an equal footing.

"He can help us," Hermione protests, rather crossly. "Honestly, why does no one but me ever consider asking an authority figure for advice?”

"Professor Dumbledore is still ze Chief Mugwump of ze International Confederation of Wizards and ze Chief Warlock of ze Wizengamot!" Fleur insists, firmly. "What will you do when 'e plucks ze truth from your 'ead? We 'ave broken more laws zan even you could name, remember?”

"That doesn't matter. He _always_ helps Harry—"

"Can you assure me zat 'e will not report us?" Fleur asks. "If I recall, 'e was suspended twice by ze school governors and bowed to zeir wishes—"

"That was different! The first time, Lucius Malfoy threatened those governors," says Hermione, "and the second time, Fudge and Umbridge clearly had it out for him. He covered for us when he didn't need to so Harry wouldn't be expelled. If we can't trust Dumbledore, we can't trust anyone."

"We did not break a few school rules, 'Ermione," says Fleur, "we broke dozens and dozens _international_ wizarding laws. _Criminal_ laws. 'e would be duty-bound to report them." Dumbledore is a just man, she had observed once. Just men do not make a habit of bending the rules very often.

"You don't know him like we do," Hermione mutters, but her eyes betray her.

"Per'aps I don't, but what can you say? What would you say?" Fleur presses. "What can 'e do for us? Ze Tournament must continue, or every champion will die. If ze 'eadmaster tries to dissolve ze magical contract, 'e will be doing You-Know-Oo's work for 'im." At that, Hermione flinches, but Fleur barrels on and on and on. "Dumbledore would listen, but 'e would not understand. No one else will understand. Zey were not zere."

"It sounds like you don't want to tell anyone."

"Of course not," Fleur protests, "but 'Arry and Cedric, yes, zey should know—"

"Harry and Cedric?" Hermione exclaims, growing as frazzled as her hair. "Are you mad? We can't tell Harry!"

"I—" Fleur is hopelessly lost again. "Of all people...you do not want 'im to know?"

Hermione is already out of her seat and pacing the room, skittish as a mouse. There isn't a temper brewing here, Fleur suspects, but something deeper. "We can't tell Harry, Fleur. Please. If we agree on only one thing today, let it be this. He—he can't know." When she returns her gaze to Fleur, Fleur is astonished to see tears in Hermione's eyes. Finally, the tears. There is the emotion that left Hermione so bereft only several days before. "Harry's—the Tournament scared him so much last time. He never said so...he's like Ron in that way, bottling things up, but I knew. I could tell. He had no idea who put his name in the Goblet and never would've dared to try it himself. And he was so miserable! No one believed him..."

Fleur certainly didn't, but had been grateful all the same to see his goodness at the Second Task when he rescued Gabrielle from the lake. Her suspicions had been forgotten and cast away, making her nearly blithe in her indifference. _So what if he cheated_? She had told Céline, practically awestruck by the boy she had long written off. He rescued a hostage that wasn't his because he believed he had no other choice, just like Fleur.

"He just wants a quiet life, Fleur. Don't you see? Every year, he comes to Hogwarts, hoping for a good term, and every year, s-something horrible happens!" Hermione bursts out. "He and Ron and I didn't get used to trouble for no reason. Voldemort's shadow falls over Harry every year and then as soon as summer hits, he goes back to a house that doesn't w-want him." Hermione wipes her eyes on her sleeve, but the words keep coming, flooding like giant waves over a levee. Fleur swallows, still at a loss. "You probably don't know about any of this, but his u-uncle and his aunt and his c-cousin are horrible people. They're what the wizarding world thinks of Muggles! They're cruel and heartless and Harry always has to wait two long months until he can come back here. Come _home_. Hogwarts is his home, and I can't, we can't, tell him about Voldemort. It'd be...too much."

Fleur cannot help but feel like they are leading a particularly sweet lamb to slaughter, though she holds her tongue.

"Do you understand?" Hermione asks, nearly sobbing now. Fleur can't remember a sight so disquieting, save for Cedric's body at the entrance to the maze at the end of the Third Task. "Harry would only see it as a choice to die now if he runs or die later if he goes and that's no choice at all! We _can't_ breathe a word, Fleur, or he won't...he won't act as he did last time. Knowing what will happen would change the outcome of the duel—!"

"—because 'is mind would be exposed," Fleur interrupts, getting to her feet. Between Skeeter's articles and the smear campaign in the _Daily Prophet_ , it was no longer a secret that Harry had a mental connection with You-Know-Who. It was that same connection that alerted the Order to Arthur's condition after the snake attacked. It was also that connection that lured Harry to the Department of Mysteries, and later trapped him in the clutches of his enemy, begging for help on a cot in the Level 9 corridor, a prisoner in his own body. Fleur shudders to think what You-Know-Who would do with the knowledge of a Time-Turner that changed the world so drastically. Perhaps that would set her and Hermione on the path to a paradox, or at least _doom_ , if Fleur's fears were the inciting incident to get You-Know-Who into a greater scope of power in the first place...

Eyes shining, Hermione nods. "I-I know I can't say it's what's best for him, but this is the only way I can think of that'll keep him safe. I'll beg him for forgiveness when the war is all over, but—" Hermione pleads, jumping in fright when Fleur pulls her into a hug, knowing no other balm but that.

After a beat, Hermione's arms timidly circle Fleur's waist, forcing Fleur to realize that she wasn't the only one worried over the past week.

Tomorrow, she'll start asking.

"I won't say a zing, 'Ermione," Fleur promises, drawing back at the sound of a hiccup and trying for an encouraging smile. "You 'ave my word."

"Thank you."

Releasing Hermione, Fleur passes over a handkerchief, surprised to learn she's puzzling over what it will mean for her to have a friend as loyal as this one...a friend like Hermione Granger, who dares to cross time and space to save the lives of a handful of boys and a falsely accused murderer.

A wonderful thing, she would wager.

"Can you—?" Fleur asks, gently.

"Yes," Hermione answers, dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief. "I'm—I'm fine. Let's keep going, please."

They return to their seats.

"What of Cedric?" Fleur asks, considering their other lamb and waiting for Hermione's perspective on the matter. She offers the sweets again, thinking it over. It won't do to inform Harry of the unpleasant future, but what about Cedric? Could his participation alter things for the better?

They may be caught in a corner by the rules of the Tournament, Crouch, and You-Know-Who, but they will not be idle in that time, Fleur decides.

"What do you think?" Hermione prompts instead, nibbling on the Wizochoc and scratching Crookshanks behind the ears with the other hand.

"Per'aps we can tell Cedric," Fleur says, surprised to be asked, "when ze time is right."

"Which is..."

"Before ze Third Task, I theenk," Fleur explains. "I do not weesh to...spoil 'is year at 'Ogwarts, either." Whether that meant persuading Cedric not to touch the Cup, or convincing him of the truth in some other manner, Fleur doesn't know, but she supposes it can be decided later. Perhaps Cedric would not understand any more than Albus Dumbledore, but she can appeal to his sense of fairness, at least, and have a partner in the maze.

"Okay," Hermione agrees with a sigh, and the planning starts anew.

"I do not believe," Fleur continues, after a back-and-forth vetting members of the Order, "save for Cedric, zat we should tell anyone."

"Me neither," Hermione says, having also found no one that meets her standards. "We ought to keep it between us. It's our job, our responsibility."

" _Our_ foolishness, _our_ silly Time-Turner..." says Fleur, droll again. Hermione smiles.

"All of my adventures usually begin this way," she confesses, sheepish. "Harry and Ron's recklessness has certainly rubbed off on me."

" _I_ theenk you were always zis way," Fleur remarks, fixing them up with a new pot of tea. "You weren't placed into Gryffindor for nothing, mon amie."

Blushing, Hermione quickly redirects. "So we're keeping things mostly the same until the Third Task. And then what? We go about our business like we did before?" Perhaps Fleur was wrong to think Hermione was settling into 1994 perfectly. Next time, in the interests of friendship, she will ask.

"Yes and no." Fleur dons what little courage she has and faces down the lion. Here it is, the moment of truth. _In _truth, the idea is only a few minutes old, but Fleur feels she ought to pass it along. Sending Harry and Cedric into You-Know-Who's path again is the same tragedy in the making, and a waste of their efforts to stop—and change—the outcome and aims of the war itself. "But I feel...zat I should make my own way into ze graveyard."__

Hermione's cup slips from her fingers and smashes, sending her cat darting into the other room with a yowl.

" _What_?" Hermione demands, regaining all the color she lost in one fell swoop. This is rather unfortunate for Fleur, who was counting on a longer period of tranquility and gentle pliability. With a wave of her wand, Fleur repairs the damage, hoping Aunt Ninette doesn't learn of the incident.

"'Ermione, please," she hedges, marshaling her thoughts into order, "I 'ave an idea."

"An idea to get yourself _killed_? Do go on!"

"If we tell Cedric, I theenk eet would be...prudent to join 'im and 'Arry, if Cedric should reach ze Cup just as 'e did before. Do not scoff, Mademoiselle Granger, until I am finished. As I said...eet would be prudent to follow ze boys so Cedric and I may witness ze...resurrection."

If Harry's interview is any gauge to go by, Fleur is sure to vomit when she sees it with her own eyes.

Hermione gives a snort of mirthless laughter, seemingly unable to believe her ears. "Now who's choosing to die? Fleur, are you actually going mad?"

"No," says Fleur, calmly, "eet is ze opposite of madness. Between 'Arry, Cedric, and I, fewer people would _doubt_ You-Know-Oo's return."

That shuts Hermione up. In the meantime, Fleur returns the books, the wands, and the golden egg to her bag, waiting for a roar or a resolution.

After a long silence spent studying the minutiae of Hermione's facial expressions, Fleur's patience is rewarded.

"Besides the numerous logistical problems of getting you and Cedric _to_ the graveyard," Hermione finally manages, tired exasperation replacing the anger, "I fail to see how you both won't be seen by Harry, Voldemort, Peter Pettigrew, or the Death Eaters. I don't know how you won't be discovered by the snake, Nagini, and I don't know how you'll escape, unharmed, Harry and Cedric in tow, and _still_ make it back to Hogwarts!"

"Zat," Fleur persists, "is what we should be doing. Eet does not need to be as eet was before, 'Ermione. We should spend our year—our second chance—planning for zat, for ze war, for the sake of ze boys, for zeir very lives. If we are prepared for ze worst, eet will not turn out so poorly." They have a chance to set Fleur's regretful what-ifs after the Department of Mysteries on their heads. Why in Flamel's name would Hermione refuse?

"But Voldemort won't openly declare—"

"We will 'ave ze advantage, neverzeless," Fleur urges, spying a weak point. Getting the upper hand on You-Know-Who is much too tempting to ignore. "If you and I are ready, ze others will follow, and ze future will be unlike anything we can imagine. Per'aps ze war will end earlier. Per'aps—"

" _Perhaps_ you're playing a dangerous game," says Hermione, disapproving, but her eyes betray her. She's considering it. "Hubris doesn't suit you."

Fleur wrinkles her nose. "Zat belongs to ancient myths and foolish 'eroes. I am far better than ze likes of...Odyssesus and Icarus."

Hermione gives a faint laugh. "That's what you think." She gazes at Fleur, amusement fading. "We'd have to plan so carefully, Fleur. It worries me."

"You _like_ to plan, and you always worry."

"I do," Hermione admits, offering her begrudging concession. Calmer now, she still carries a familiar air of anxiousness about her. "You could die."

"So could you," says Fleur with a shrug. She is not so blasé with Hermione's life as she is with her own, but only _aware_ of the chance of an unsatisfied Death dogging their heels, offering beguiling gifts to reverse the spinning of the Time-Turner. "Come now, 'Ermione," she wheedles, grinning and trying to appeal to yet another noble heart with a reminder of a promise already made, "theenk of ze wonderful reward at ze end."

"Don't push your luck." With a sigh, Hermione accepts the fresh cup and resigns herself to Fleur's cajoling. "What do you have in mind?"

As the Time-Turner bids a burning adieu on her skin, Fleur leans forward, and the planning starts again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This had to be the ninth or tenth version of the draft, I lost track. The problem and the delay between updates was due to me struggling to both explain time travel in such a way that any reader and Fleur, the audience proxy, could understand it while also "setting the stage" for the rest of the story. I just couldn't go on any longer without Fleur or Hermione discussing the elements as thoroughly as possible. (And Exposition!Hermione struck again.) With the word vomit and the complicated, mind-bending time travel stuff finally out of the way, I think it'll be so much easier to write all the episodic ideas I've outlined, which is a huge relief.  
>   
> Time travel is confusing, so if anyone had as much trouble as I did trying to figure it out, you can go [here](https://www.quirkbooks.com/post/three-types-time-travel-stories), [here](https://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_md6f76NKDl1qc91k6o1_500.jpg), [here](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RippleEffectIndicator), [here](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SelfFulfillingProphecy), [here](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StableTimeLoop), [here](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TimeyWimeyBall), [here](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PeggySue), and [here](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlternateTimeline). I liked the second link best (Hermione's commentary was pulled from that diagram, sometimes word-for-word), even if _Doctor Who_ was weirdly omitted. For your understanding and a "TLDR"—you can consider the fic to have thrown Fleur and Hermione into an **alternate timeline** with **fixed** and **dynamic** elements, since I'm going to play with some plot devices later. Of course, the fic also breaks the rules of time travel established in _Prisoner of Azkaban_ , although I'm sure no one minds.  
>   
> Finally, I apologize for the astronomical word count. Believe it or not, I cut out a lot.  
>   
> Thanks for reading and all your patience! Happy (late) Valentine's Day!


	5. Chapter 5

The ceiling begins to shudder as Fleur and Hermione wander back into the passage, spraying down dust and gravel like rain.

Fleur has a feeling she'll grow just as fond of the Whomping Willow as she is of the grindylows.

"Our friend is awake..." As if summoned by a spell, Crookshanks hurtles past their feet and out of sight. "For ze moment," Fleur amends. In Grimmauld Place, the most Fleur saw of him was the pair of glowing eyes beneath sofas and the streak of fur that was forever chasing after Ginny's discarded butterbeer caps. This time, Fleur supposes, she'll learn a little about Crookshanks, and perhaps more than a bit about Hermione.

Unlike the morning, where the conversation flowed continuously, the walk back from the Shrieking Shack is quieter, with each of them keeping their own counsel. Fleur tries not to linger too long on the Time-Turner again, yet the chill of its arrivals make Fleur feel like she is transforming into an Augurey, poised to foretell every horror to come, poised to _bring_ every horror to come, if the—"time and space continuum" per Hermione—broke around her like it nearly did for Eloise Mintumble. Should Sunday and Monday pass without incident, however, Fleur may start to relax.

Slightly.

Despite herself, Fleur's attention drifts ahead to the Third Task, remembering the anticipation that froze her face and kept her stomach as restless as the Hopping Pot when she stepped into the maze, the last champion to enter and the first to leave. _That_ was the task that mattered, and in her first run of the Tournament, the days and months preceding it seemed to fly by, putting all of her frantic preparation into sharp relief. Now that anticipation has turned entirely on its head, forcing Fleur to feel like the coming months will pass much slower, like honey oozing off a spoon.

There is time enough to change things, Fleur reasons, shivering, but the margin for error will grow thinner than a thread.

When nest of roots comes into view with every earthen step allowing a river of rainwater to flood the passageway, Hermione breaks the silence.

"I never thanked you."

"Pardon?" Happy to abandon worries not so easily solved for a time, Fleur's distracted by the state of her boots, now ruined by the mud overflow. _These are Maison Capenoir originals, for goodness' sake._ She stifles a groan. _Only Triwizard winnings can cover the cost of replacements_!

Hermione's words find Fleur again in the gloom. "I never thanked you," she repeats, louder, "for bringing me along. For coming back.”

"Ah," Fleur demurs, still unsure how to feel about everything, "zat was…” A coin in flight, with every flip in the air holding the consequences and its audience in suspense, the true outcome to be known only in hindsight. A desperate and dangerous gamble in pursuit of an impossible goal.

Fleur would've pursued that goal alone with the Time-Turner even if Hermione didn’t approve, although she would’ve certainly met different results. The rewards for her recklessness will not come until June, making Hermione's gratitude ring wrong in her ears and put quills and needles onto her skin. Since she was a child, Fleur's expected good marks and compliments and the highest praise, yet getting a due for carelessness feels—very unsuited. Undeserved. Giving a murmur of acknowledgment and keen to drop the subject, Fleur walks on. Hermione hastens to keep up.

In the end, she and Hermione managed to arrive in the past unscathed, but what if they hadn't? What if Mintumble's fate had become their own?

(It still _could_.)

"It wasn't nothing, Fleur." Hermione is not deceived nor deterred, although there is no hint of a reproach in her voice. She sounds so sad that Fleur slows her steps and glances over her shoulder. Swathed in shadow, Hermione looks younger than her years. "Trust me. I couldn't..." After listening to Hermione's tireless speculation for hours, the fumbling for words is like a new language to Fleur's ears, so she takes note. "I couldn't think. I never can under pressure, not very well. Without you and that mad Time-Turner, I-I would've gone back to school like nothing happened."

To her dismay, Fleur has yet to shake the recollection of Hermione in the Department of Mysteries, dead-eyed and solemn, from her thoughts.

"I keep dreaming about it," Hermione whispers, stricken, “about wanting to leave and...and missing my chance. Can you imagine it if I had?"

Images of Hogwarts swim in Fleur's brain like memories in a Pensieve, with its student body adorned in mourning and misery all over again.

"So, please, please let me thank you, Fleur,” Hermione says in a rush, drawing both of them right back to reality. Fleur's glad to be free of that reverie. Her vision of Hermione, Ginny, and Luna, sans the boys, was haunting. “Without you and that Time-Turner, I would've lost my best friends.”

After a moment, Fleur nods, more flustered than she'd like to admit. Has anyone ever been so thankful for Fleur doing anything before? The gratitude is almost overwhelming. The sensation of quills and needles returns as she searches for a reply. She is a confidante now, a friend, and Hermione ought to be heard. "De rien. Eet was my…" It gives her no pleasure to jump into the fray, but she would be remiss not to do so. She swore more than one vow to fight. "I cannot do zis without you, 'Ermione, but you—you would've found a way to 'elp somehow, I theenk.”

 _Admitting weakness and conceding to cleverness again_. Fleur wonders if she ought to be proud of so small a bettering step, or concerned.

"What, and fight Voldemort alone?" Hermione asks, recovering herself enough to snort. "That's likely!”

Hermione knows the perils of their journey much better than Fleur, though. She understands Harry and Sirius. She recognizes the stakes that are only growing higher and higher, having held a vantage point since the very beginning and stood with her friends at every opportunity...but would all that prior knowledge guarantee success? Fleur hasn't forgotten yesterday's confession in the library. It would've been a lonely, pyrrhic victory for Hermione if she managed it at all, and dependent on a number of forces outside of her control. What would stop You-Know-Who from getting his hands on the prophecy, if Harry and Sirius stayed away from the Department of Mysteries? Perhaps Hermione could've acted at just the right moments, but would that give her everything they wanted now—Cedric? Harry? Ronald? Sirius and Neville? A united and war-ready wizarding world?

Maybe. Maybe not. It's a line of choices and chances and coincidences too serpentine to follow, so Fleur abandons it. _What's done is done_.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves." As Fleur intended, Hermione only smiles at the ribbing and raises her eyebrows. "We still 'ave a long way to go.”

"That we do."

Braving the rain, Hermione ascends the earthen stairs first and clambers out of the roots, retrieving a grumpy, drenched Crookshanks on her way. In the interim, Fleur summons an umbrella from her bag, enlarges the canopy, and allows a grateful Hermione to share cover from the storm. As they maneuver around the petrified roots of the Whomping Willow and start back toward the castle, Hermione finds another reason to smile.

"You know, I still can't believe it." To Fleur’s relief, Hermione practically glows with excitement. "Not even _seventh_ years study wandless magic..."

Not wanting to offer the wrong impression, Fleur's amusement is kept far from her face. She already observed a few quirks of Hermione's since they met, her punctuality and practicality among them, but this is different. Hermione's appreciation for learning new things is rather well known, and therein lay a unique opportunity to let their fledgling friendship sprout roots. Fleur meant what she said when it came time to present her ideas for the rest of the term. Preparing Hermione for the war to come is the smart choice. The _right_ choice. If Hermione can get the hang of magics so advanced that Hogwarts did not include any in the curricula, Fleur will consider Harry, Ron, and Neville somewhat safer than they were before.

It's an unusual way to make a friend, but since nothing about their situation falls anywhere near usual, Fleur will seize the day and the chance.

"Zis will take all year," Fleur warns. "Can you handle zat?" _If it is possible_. In the future, Hermione only finished her O.W.L.s. Fleur will be forced to cover nonverbal spells as well, if her promise has any chance of success, and brush up on her own understanding of theory rather than practice.

"I can do it," Hermione insists. They ease along, boots sinking into paths trod upon by generations of former students. "When shall we start?"

"Zat I do not know. Allow me to consider..." Fleur searches for the appropriate word. "A syllabus."

Between the Tournament, her classes, and this... _tutoring_ of Hermione, Fleur's second run of her last year of adolescence is to be her busiest yet.

"Are you going to quiz me?"

This time, a giggle escapes Fleur before she can stop it. Hermione joins her after a beat, looking sheepish.

"You 'ave not 'ad enough of your examinations?" Fleur asks, smiling. "I would theenk after ze O.W.L.s..."

"Fine, fine, fine," Hermione groans, but then she's grinning too, “you don't need to quiz me!"

 _Another thing to remember_ , Fleur muses, _in the study of Hermione Granger_. She's practical, punctual, loves learning, takes her tea without sugar if there is none to be had, and for all her oddities, her sharp tongue, her bravery, and her way of bristling like a knarl, she can make Fleur laugh.

* * *

Fleur reports to the dungeons that afternoon, dragging her feet every step of the way. This is not how she would've liked to spend her Saturday.

"You're late, Miss Delacour. Do not test my patience again."

Trying not to lose sight of the positives of being in another Hogwarts detention, Fleur swallows her pride and says, "I am sorry, sir.”

Fleur joins Neville Longbottom and a first-year Hufflepuff at one of the tables. Instead of cauldrons, the space is filled with cartons of preserved boomslangs. Snape glides over to illustrate the punishment. "Boomslang skin is, as only one of you may know, quite a rare ingredient in potion-making. Longbottom, due to your recent experience in collection, you will explain the procedure to Miss Delacour and Miss Branstone. Begin.”

 _As if Beauxbatons has taught me nothing_ , Fleur grouses, doing her best not to breathe in the smell from the cartons. Of all things to inherit from her grandmother, Fleur's sense of smell is by far the worst. Without its uses detecting Dark magic, Fleur would've cursed her nose off years ago.

While Neville mumbles his way through the process, meeting nobody's eyes, Fleur reaches over to correct Branstone's grip on her knife.

"Like so," she advises, softly, seizing an opportunity to endear herself. Neville, to her relief, is also listening. "Zis way, you'll get more off ze bone."

"Okay," Branstone whispers back, gazing down without enthusiasm at her specimen. Thinking wistfully of her sister, Fleur lowers her voice again.

"Don't theenk of eet as a snake," she suggests, adopting the conspiratorial air best employed to let Gaby in on her secrets, "but a fruit."

"A fruit?" Neville and Branstone squeak out in unison, the former incredulous, the latter trying not to giggle, unable to believe their ears.

When Fleur and Manon were little girls and still squeamish, their first foray into Potions went similarly. Monsieur Kader's suggestion to think of their class as a cooking exercise rather than a school assignment made the handling of pufferfish eyes and rat tails far more bearable. While neither would be asking their house-elves to add bat spleens into their stews on the holiday break, Fleur and Manon had since taken the subject seriously.

"Unless you want to remember you are in detention," Fleur says, smiling in encouragement. _Mental_ , Bill would chuckle, when Fleur crossed some stodgy, unseen British line of decorum, but her hopes are soaring high here. Fleur has to lessen the gulf between _her_ and _them_ before it's too late.

Her advice, mental or not, does the trick. Cheered slightly, a feat that seldom seems to happen in these dungeons, the pair gets back to work.

 _Broad strokes_ , Fleur reminds herself, starting to cut, _and a time limit_. She and Hermione had about six months to reshape the pocket of wizarding society that Hogwarts was hosting for the Tournament before disaster struck (though that wasn't a guaranteed paradigm shift). Small courtesies, Hermione nevertheless insisted, could go a long way. Perhaps this Hufflepuff and this Gryffindor would look more warmly upon Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, and see people instead of the intruding competition. Perhaps, come June, a bad first impression of a visiting student could change, as it had for Hermione. Perhaps, Fleur reasoned after the idea steeped, Britain would not stand alone against You-Know-Who the second time around.

Or is it the third?

(There is too much uncertainty in the mission for Fleur's liking, but needs must.)

Fortunately, the wall clock's hands seem to spin like the wings of billywigs, freeing Fleur from the dungeons in what feels like just a few minutes.

With no desire to eat after that detention, Fleur trudges back to the carriage and runs a bath, hoping the steam of its waters will soothe away all her troubles. To her disappointment, Fleur surfaces no closer to calmness. She dumps the golden egg on her bed and dons her pajamas, more exhausted than she can ever recall being, excluding her twice-lived Thursday in the Hospital Wing. This time, there'll be no need to fear fitting into her dress robes for the Yule Ball; the stress over the Time-Turner, the Tournament, and the duel in Little Hangleton solves that problem quite well.

After supper, her classmates begin to file into the carriage's kitchen, bearing sweets—amongst other things—from Hogsmeade.

"Allow me," Sacha announces, summoning Fleur's mug away from her and pouring the contents of his flask into her drink.

Fleur gives the mug a frown, remembering Sacha's delighted sorties into J. Pippin's Potions and Dogweed and Deathcap, then pushes it away.

Hugo laughs.

"Confusing me for C—Professor Moody?" Fleur asks.

"Of course not," says Sacha. "You're so..." He looks around the room for help, paling a bit when none is offered. "And he's so..."

"Grouchy," Edgar adds, plainly trying not to smile as he joins Fleur at the table. Giggling behind her hand, Céline sits down on Fleur's other side.

"But Fleur's grouchy _and_ groggy, especially in the mornings," Giselle points out, refusing to quail under Fleur's dirty look. Sacha makes his escape.

The group recounts their adventures in Hogsmeade, including a detour into Maestro's Music Shop and a snowball fight near the Shrieking Shack. Charles, Fleur learns, flirted with Madame Rosmerta for a free round (and was summarily shot down). Henry ducked into Madam Puddifoot's with a girl from Durmstrang, only to come running back out, covered in espresso. Edgar bought a pair of socks from Gladrags that screamed when they got too smelly (Fleur is glad she isn't his roommate). On their way back to the carriage, the group spotted Professor Karkaroff wandering the grounds, looking like he'd been Confunded. These are the things seventeen year olds care about, but Fleur finds herself shuttling between impatience and guilt, because she isn't truly seventeen anymore. She longs for them to catch up—and grow up—like her, but...is that her place? Why should Fleur ruin their exchange with the fear-filled telling of the future? To them, the most powerful Dark wizard of all time is only a story.

"You look..." Edgar ventures after Fleur loses track of the conversation and mutters an apology.

"Absolutely awful," Giselle says, pressing her hand to Fleur's forehead to check for a fever. The effect is ruined when a few other hands join Giselle's, forcing Fleur to bat them away with a fond huff. "Did you drown in your bathwater? Are we speaking with the ghost of Fleur Delacour?"

Try as she might, the gulf between _her_ and _them_ is widening, only this schism hurts more than the other. This is a price of being reckless, Fleur realizes. She's so close to her best friends again and yet unable to trust them with the twin burdens of the Time-Turner or You-Know-Who.

"I was working on the egg," Fleur lies, fishing for the same words that explained why she'd brought it along to the washroom. Céline had laughed herself silly last time when she saw Fleur carrying it back into their room. "It doesn't shriek as loudly when it's hit with water," she confesses.

"That's why you went out into the storm?" Edgar asks as the group huddles closer, eager for news of their champion.

"Yes."

They digest the update, buzzing about the kitchen like a flock of birds.

"I'm thinking of submerging it," Fleur says, for once amusing herself with the secret. By now, she can recite the mermaids' song by heart.

"Ooh," gasps Céline. "Maybe it will tell you something?"

"It'll be a riddle," Edgar opines. "Remember what Ludo Bagman said? They'll have to solve the clue inside the egg!"

As the group begins bickering about what the clue may entail, a jet of flame flies out of Edgar's pocket, surprising Fleur. Across the table, the model dragon that mirrored Fleur's opponent in the First Task waddles out of Edgar's hands, chirruping faintly. That, she realizes, is why half of her classmates are crammed into the kitchen. Céline produces a bag of various foods filched from Ravenclaw plates, trying to tempt the dragon to eat.

"Did you decide on a name?" Fleur asks, stroking the dragon's wings with a finger. Thrilled by Fleur's gift, Edgar had taken to carrying the beast in his robes. Only Professor Sprout's cottoned on so far, but she'd let the infraction slide after the dragon freed her hand from a Fanged Geranium.

"Perenelle," says Edgar as the dragon purrs under Fleur's attentions and curls its tail around her palm, "Perenelle Flamel."

"Bah!" Hugo exclaims, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Edgar," says Céline, disapproving.

Giselle sends a four into the air with her wand, mimicking the judges after the Tasks. Edgar ignores them all, glancing at Fleur for her opinion.

"Charming," she offers at last, prompting groans and Edgar's jubilant grin. Uncurling from Fleur's hand, Perenelle waddles back to his arms.

Fleur tries to let them lift her spirits, to no avail. They aren't to blame for her poor mood, but her earlier disappointment returns, making her lonelier than ever in such a crowd. They don't understand even a fraction of what is bothering her, and there is nothing that can be done about it.

Sacha pokes his head back into the kitchen, dispelling the rest of the smoke from Giselle's score. "Fleur? You've got a visitor."

After the appalling length of her Saturday, Fleur's in no mood for more company, not even if it was the French Minister of Magic. "A visitor?"

"That Hogwarts girl," says Sacha, failing to hide his curiosity as Fleur rises from her seat at once, tightening the belt on her dressing gown.

"Granger again?" Edgar prompts in a _sotto_ voice.

Fleur glances back at the others without really seeing them, terrified of what Hermione may say that can't wait until morning. "Just a m—"

"No need," Céline interrupts, banging her knee off the edge of the table in her eagerness to get out of her seat, "we'll join you!"

Against her protestations, the rest trail behind Fleur to the foyer like ducklings, whispering amongst themselves. The spectacle attracts the attention of the rest of the carriage, making Fleur relieved that Madame Maxime went for drinks with the gamekeeper. Paul, Charles, Henry, Emma, Manon, and Isabeau watch curiously from their seats in the parlor, neglecting their card game as Hermione Granger waits at the entrance, rocking back on her heels and fiddling with the zipper on her jacket. Feeling embarrassingly underdressed for the occasion, Fleur forces a smile in greeting.

"Salut, 'Ermione," she says, then switches to English as a courtesy, wishing she'd downed Sacha's improved drink after all. "What brings you 'ere?"

"Hi, Fleur. Can we talk?" Hermione asks. "Alone?"

Right to the heart of the matter, Fleur can't help but notice. _That could only mean trouble_.

"Whatever for?" Giselle dares to inquire with all the gusto she gave updating Fleur of Charles and Henry's love lives.

"Tutoring," Fleur improvises with a wan, admonishing look at these overgrown ducklings, just as Hermione blurts out, "English lessons."

There is a pause.

"But you're fluent," Hugo observes, gaining a look of dawning comprehension at Giselle's whisper, "but, ah, one should always practice?"

Seizing the excuse, Fleur nods and reaches to steer Hermione somewhere else. The theatre, she decides, on a whim. "Excuse us."

"Hurry back," Edgar calls over the upswing of laughter at their backs and its echoes down the corridor. "We haven't been properly introduced!"

* * *

As soon as they are out of earshot, Fleur scoffs. There is no subtlety to be found among that lot.

"Ignore zem, please."

Hermione pays her no heed. Instead, to Fleur's delight, Hermione gazes in every direction as Fleur guides her along by the hand, a look of fascination on her face. Fleur glances about, too, trying to view the carriage's magically expanded interior as if she's seeing it the first time. Like its larger mirror, Beauxbatons, the carriage is designed in the Renaissance style, much like one of France's Muggle châteaux, the Palace of Fontainebleau. Every inch of the wall, pilasters, and lintels are colorfully painted, baring a gold trim that always seems to sparkle in wandlight. The theatre is a long walk from the foyer, letting Fleur draw Hermione past the larder, the wine cellar, ballroom, the chapel, the dormitories, the washrooms, the dueling room, the archives, and the lecture hall, their footsteps clattering across the floor that is radiating heat from below.

"Just how large is this place?" Hermione asks, amazed.

Fleur ushers Hermione into the duplication of the Beauxbatons theatre, trying to hide her pleasure at the sincere wonder on Hermione's features. _See_ , Fleur wants to say, to brag, _this is the kind of magic you are missing at Hogwarts_! "To my knowledge, Madame Maxime 'as never complained."

"Now," says Fleur, shepherding Hermione into a seat before she can get distracted by the beauty of the theatre's interior, "what are you doing 'ere?"

"I had a thought."

"Zis is not a surprise," says Fleur, leaning against the wall. She's dreading that thought, whatever it is, and would rather present a distraction. She can't shake the feeling of having too much time and not having enough before June arrives. Her head is aching. "You always 'ave so many."

"Fleur," Hermione chides, extracting a crumpled newspaper out of her bag, "listen. I was reading the _Prophet_ and I found something."

Following Hermione's directions and folding down the creases, Fleur finally spots the advertisement that brings her all too close to fainting.

 _Missing English oak wand_ , Ewan Avery writes, making Fleur's stomach plummet, _dragon heartstring core. Ten inches. Send any information by owl._

She thinks back to this morning, the morning of what has become the longest Saturday of her life, and stills. If Avery's wand is with Fleur, then—

"We changed something," Fleur says. The carriage feels too small, suddenly. "Our Avery's wand 'as replaced zis one's." Her brief good humor withers away. In the deluge of Hermione's speculation, the facts are beginning to stick. Somehow it doesn't relieve Fleur of fear, only heightens it.

"Yes." Hermione's eyes are bright and no longer quite so doubtful. "It worked," she adds, echoing Fleur's thoughts from Friday. "Time isn't fixed."

 _It worked. It worked. It worked_. They had proof. They had an amalgam of Hermione's ideas, a miscellany of what could be and what is.

"So far," Fleur mutters, anxiety tightening its grasp on her breathing. This is no coincidence, but will the magic hold? _Can_ it remain stable?

Hermione's face falls. "Fleur?"

Stepping away from the wall, Fleur takes up Hermione's habit of pacing. It doesn't help. Hermione prompts her again, brow creased with worry.

"Avery could always buy anuzzer wand," she says, panicky, trying to push common sense back into the conversation. Is the room spinning?

"So?"

" _So_?" Fleur feels sick. Her trophies mean nothing, not when the Death Eaters can simply use replacements. "Zey aren't disadvantaged at all!"

"Fleur—"

"I don't know what I am doing! What _we're_ doing. Zis is—is a mistake." Fleur latches onto that word. "A mistake." She thinks of Neville at his station, Branstone's astonishment, the laughter of her friends at the other side of the carriage, oblivious to the dangers on their doorstep. She remembers the daily appearances of Harry and Ron and Hermione in the Great Hall, the odd group of fourth-years that managed to get involved so deeply in the Tournament. Of Luna and Ginny and Sirius. They're making her _sick_. Their lives—all their lives—are now at stake because of Fleur's arrogance.

"Fleur," Hermione presses, looking alarmed, "what changed since this morning? You couldn't wait to calm me down earlier."

"I don't know!"

But she _does_ know. Fleur makes another circuit on slippered feet that are, to her shame, getting colder and colder by the minute.

"Well, stop! Fleur, can you stop pacing and listen, please?"

Fleur obeys, albeit reluctantly. Hermione beckons her closer.

"Look. Do you remember our conversation in the library?"

"I do."

"Great," Hermione agrees, not unkindly, "because _I_ remember the two of us deciding to be friends, and friends confide in each other."

Fleur bristles out of habit. "I don't need to—"

"Yes, you do! And you need peace of mind, which we don't have." Hermione wavers between the patience of speaking to a furious toddler and the restraint of a girl quite unlike her. Fleur tries very hard not to take offense. "It's like you said. We have to deal with whatever comes as it comes."

"Eet came," Fleur protests, "in your paper. Zis wand is—is like eets own Grim." The Grim or Death himself, stalking them from the shadows.

"Oh, don't get me started on that rubbish!" Hermione says scornfully. "Divination is a woolly subject, first of all, and the Grim is a story that _frightens_ people to death, same as the Augurey. Fleur, you _have_ to confide in me when you start feel like you're losing your nerve, all right?" She snatches Fleur's hand up in both of hers. "We're in this together. Frankly, I'm surprised you lasted three days _without_ going to pieces about it."

Not appeased, Fleur just studies their hands. Hermione isn't fooled.

"Why don't you explain it to me?" She prompts, releasing Fleur and settling back against the plushy seat. "Just talk. I'll try not to judge you."

Despite herself, Fleur raises an eyebrow. "I...will not hold you to zat promise, 'Ermione."

"Thank you."

For a minute, Fleur stands still and simply breathes. Outside of the small circle of her friends and family, she is seldom heard, only seen.

"Are you—" Fleur pauses, just to check. Old hurts are not easily forgotten, but she will try for Hermione's sake. "Are you going to hear me?"

"I'm listening," Hermione assures her.

Fleur tries to force steel into her spine. "Eet got to me. Ze magnitude of our...trip." All day it did. Dread haunted every step. Every whirling worry had one thing in common: the phantom at the end of every poor choice, plucking Fleur from the path she had chosen at the Order's darkest hour.

"I understand."

"Eet 'as only been three days," Fleur says, a bit helplessly. She scrubs a hand over her eyes to stay alert, fighting furious tears. "Why do I feel so...?"

"It's been more than a year for us."

She voices another complaint, crossing her arms to stave off the chill from the Time-Turner. "Our proof of change is...paltry."

"Until we get more, save Cedric, and move the prophecy, we'll wait and see," says Hermione, patiently. That was _Fleur's_ stance half a day ago!

Now she grasps at straws. Hermione is Muggle-born, so such is why Fleur hesitates to explain the outlandish aspects of her fears. Hermione said so herself in their discussion of time travel—everything is a theory or a fantasy until proven otherwise, even magic. Fleur still senses skepticism behind some of Hermione's words, much like Giselle's when they were Gaby's age and studying at Freya's School of Sorcery, the brief precursor to Beauxbatons. Giselle was always so surprised when their practice dogwood wands actually worked. Hermione, Fleur's seen, acts similarly.

"I am not accustomed to failure, 'Ermione, and if we fail in zis endeavor..."

There's an odd knowing in Hermione's eyes, but she simply nods in encouragement, like Fleur had done to Neville and Branstone.

"I must ask if you know ze _Tale of ze Three Brothers_."

"I don't," Hermione admits.

Fleur draws her wand and conjures the three brothers, Death, and the prizes for outwitting him. As Fleur narrates the story, the glowing figures follow the script. The oldest brags of his unbeatable wand, only to lose his life that very night; the second brother reunites with his lost love, only to kill himself join her when she grew weary of the mortal world; the youngest brother reveals himself to Death, gives the cloak to his son, and dies when he is ready. The tale is not her favorite of Beedle's stories, but Fleur never forgot the day she had seen the tale on Avenue de la Lisette, or the way the marionettes jerked when the wizard pulled the second brother from the stage, making Death as the one behind it all, pulling the strings.

 _But Death was cunning_. Stealing the Time-Turner was so easy, and Fleur hasn't wondered until now why that was. Does a fly notice how accessible its food is before the Venomous Tentacula opens its jaws? Do wizards see anything off about a cloak before the Lethifold shows itself? No, and no.

"So..." Hermione prompts after the last brother and Death have faded into nothingness.

"So," Fleur repeats, testily, pulling the hourglass into view, "zis is like one of ze prizes to me. Eet is like we are waiting for one of Death's tricks."

"Fleur," Hermione sighs, "we're all going to die someday. You know that. The Time-Turner brings us that much closer, but you're the one who wants to go to that graveyard in June, aren't you? You want to watch Voldemort return—for a good cause, I know! But you asked me to leave my logic at the door, and I'm trying. _You_ need to try to...stop being so imaginative. Death isn't holding us hostage. That's just a story that you grew up with, not me, and frankly, I have to draw a line somewhere!" She shakes her head, bushy hair following suit. "Remember, we agreed to reserve judgment on the higher powers. It's our choices putting us in danger, not myths. Not legends. I believe in what I read and see, and so far, one of my theories was confirmed. We replaced ourselves and the wands. Time isn't fixed. We changed the past." Hermione pauses, looking expectant.

"Imaginative," is all Fleur can grumble, almost completely stymied for counterarguments. Hermione ignores her.

"My point is we're playing a dangerous game. _Together_. If you're scared about it, talk to me. If I'm scared, I'll talk to you. Is that reasonable?"

"Yes," says Fleur, running a hand through her hair. She feels better. Calmer. There's still a weight on her shoulders, but now...now she has help.

"Follow your own advice. Think of the rewards at the end. And if—" Hermione's eyes dart to the Time-Turner's smoking exit on Fleur's neck, seemingly gathering new strength from the sight. "And if our timeline falls apart, we won't need to worry about the rest of the year, all right?"

"You speak of time as if eet is a piece of pottery," Fleur points out, nevertheless relaxing little by little, "and not ze fate of ze world in our hands."

"I'm sorting out my _priorities_ ," Hermione corrects. "So should you, because I'm counting on you. I can't do this by myself. I don't want to."

Fleur heaves a sigh, grateful to put her doubts and irrationality to bed, at least for now. This is the direction she's longed for, after all—that is to say, having one upon which to tread—and it is far too tempting to refuse a hand of help when it is so swiftly offered. "You may count on me."

"Good, because we have to focus on what we can do." Hermione looks steely now, like Hit Wizards before raids. "I don't want to think about the abstracts, Fleur. That Time-Turner may defy the all the logic I grew up with, but certain facts are holding. We went back in time and we literally changed history. We shouldn't linger on may or may not be Death when _Voldemort_ is waiting in the wings right now, playing that role quite nicely!"

Unhappy to learn how quickly the tables turned over a single day, Fleur frowns. "I thought you were ze one who worries."

"So did I," Hermione says, brightening. "Now come here and sit, I have more news for you."

Fleur obeys, joining Hermione in the front row. Another thing to remember. Whenever possible, Hermione cuts to the quick.

"Now, I was talking to Viktor earlier—"

"While _I_ languished in detention..."

"—and he thought my idea of getting students from every school to mingle was a good one, which is fair if I do say so myself—"

"I am sure 'e did," says Fleur, wondering whether she should point out that Viktor will probably agree with whatever Hermione said. _Best not_.

"So," Hermione repeats, louder, "he suggested we can meet in Hogsmeade to get to know each other."

"Just you and Viktor, or are we all invited?" Fleur asks innocently.

"Anyone can join us." Hermione blushes again. "Come on, this is part of the plan. We're pushing for international magical cooperation, aren't we?"

"So zat Britain will not stand alone," Fleur finishes, gathering her thoughts. The relief is soporific, lulling Fleur like a good draught. "Yes, I know."

Of all facts, figures, and fears that Fleur is to remember, let it be this one—she _isn't_ alone.

"Did you pick a theatre to speak with me on purpose?" Hermione asks in askance, fighting a smile. "I can't remember you ever being so dramatic..."

"Or 'mental'?" Fleur suggests. This is a strange and wending way of making a friend, but she's beginning to like it.

"You're under a lot of pressure," Hermione says, gazing at the room's embellishments now. "We both are. It was bound to happen sooner or later."

"Cooler 'eads prevailed."

Hermione takes her hand again.

"Don't worry. We're going to get through this together," she promises, so assured that Fleur must fall in line and believe it. "Every step of the way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fourteen agonizing drafts later and I'm finally finished. Sorry for the wait. Thank you for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

After stomaching little but stress lately, Fleur stirs on Sunday morning feeling oddly certain for the first time since she stole the Time-Turner.

They have a plan (many plans), a purpose (to save the world), and some peace of mind (however fleeting and elusive that peace will be). This mission won't be easy, but Fleur's starting to believe she can regain her footing. Her old confidence. _Curse-Breakers always swagger about_ , Cerberus had insisted, leaning against the threshold of Fleur's office in a rare bid to distract her. Fleur only laughed, because his accusation came months into her job at the Ministry, and it was also true! Fresh from Beauxbatons, she dived headlong into the dangerous work of poking and prodding Dark objects in the hopes of not hurting herself, _and_ joined the war effort against You-Know-Who. A swagger was inevitable at that point.

(Her mother called that arrogance in another life, but that life spun out of Fleur's hands last week and it wasn't coming back, not without a miracle.)

Stretching, she glances sideways. Since _we_ stole the Time-Turner, Fleur amends, gazing at the girl replacing Adrian Bell as her field partner—

Until the alarm and comprehension sink in, forcing Fleur out of her seat as if catapulted.

" _'Ermione_ ," she hisses, gathering information in split seconds, like the snaps of flashbulbs between photographs. The theatre. A crick in her neck. Hermione, asleep, curled up in the adjacent chair like a cat. The crowing of Hagrid's roosters and the buzzing of fairies in his garden. "Wake up!"

Startled awake after her elbow slides off an armrest, Hermione shifts to give Fleur a bleary-eyed look. "Hmm?"

"We overslept," Fleur hastens to explain, steadying Hermione before the shock can unseat her. "You must get back to ze castle!"

After so much fretting over the Time-Turner, the volte-face into the matter of Hermione Granger being out of her bed is almost laughable, but Fleur's happy to do it. If she truly is a Beauxbatons girl again, she should be concerned over the consequences of a late-night's visit from a friend.

Now properly motivated, Hermione springs to her feet and scurries after Fleur, throwing an invisibility cloak over her shoulders.

"I should be fine once I get to the staircases..." Now only a disembodied voice and light footsteps, Hermione begins to remind Fleur of a real ghost as they hurry down the carriage's long and winding corridors, at least until she yawns. "Even Mr. Filch needs to sleep...goodness, what _is_ the time?"

"Sunrise," Fleur sighs, missing the days where she slept well and deeply.

They had spent much of the night planning again. While the endless discussion in the Shrieking Shack gave birth to Fleur's idea of tutoring Hermione in advanced spellcasting, Hermione's idea of international magical cooperation needed fine-tuning. Broad strokes would do, Hermione had persisted, but surgical strikes were necessary, too. ("Surgical strikes?" Fleur had asked, although she didn't get a satisfactory explanation.)

Emphasizing how important it was for the students to get to know each other, Hermione suggested things like dueling clubs, tours of the grounds, Durmstrang ship, or Beauxbatons carriage ("Professor Karkaroff will not be accommodating," Fleur had muttered), as well as Quidditch friendlies ("so I won't have to listen to people ask why we aren't playing it," Hermione irritably explained), small competitions, like Gobstones or Exploding Snap, and finally, hangouts in the Three Broomsticks ("or the Hog's Head Inn, if anyone is feeling _adventurous_ ," Hermione added, amusing Fleur).

And yet, Fleur could see a glaring problem: the cooperation itself. Who from Hogwarts would play Exploding Snap with a student of Durmstrang?

"Cedric, I suppose," Hermione had said, and that really was that, because then Fleur could step back and see the new links that would pull the unsuspecting and the unknowing to the middle of their widening web: the schools' champions. _Of course_. If Cedric, Harry, Fleur, and Viktor built a rapport outside of the competition, the rest of their classmates may follow. _First our classmates, then the staff_ , Fleur had thought, _then Britain..._

In the end, Hermione is angling for perfection, or as close to perfection as they can get in their bid to revise the past. Fleur simply hopes not to lose her head remembering all there was to remember. _Save the boys_ , she had determined as Hermione rambled on, albeit nearing sleep herself. _Expose You-Know-Who. Craft Hermione into an even greater witch. Watch Crouch. Watch the Time-Turner. Endear Beauxbatons and Durmstrang to Hogwarts, and vice versa. Attend classes, keep up with the coursework, pay attention to every friend, maintain correspondence with Gaby and Maman and Papa and Grand-Mère, feign ignorance of developments in the Tournament, and whenever necessary, plan and plan and plan..._

Sacha's stash of novelties from apothecaries on either side of La Manche is more appealing now, Fleur muses, if only for the stress relief.

At last, they reach the foyer, then the entrance. Fleur opens the carriage door, feeling the slightest brush of the invisibility cloak against her arm.

"See you later," Hermione whispers. Her footsteps grow faint, then disappear altogether.

Doubting she'll sleep any longer despite her tiredness, Fleur returns to her room, dresses, and whiles away the hours before breakfast sifting through books and gathering material for Hermione's syllabus. Just after ten o'clock, Céline emerges from beneath her pillow, puffy-eyed and pale.

"Where," she croaks, ignoring the mocking smirk sent her way, "is your little friend?"

"In the castle," Fleur replies, donning a pair of spare boots and sliding the ruined Capenoirs under her vanity. "She'll join us for breakfast."

_Or brunch, at this rate..._

"But we're all hungover," Céline protests, burrowing below the covers again at the sound of Fleur's laughter. "None of us will be pleasant company!"

"You can act pleasant," Fleur says, rising so she may wrench her best friend out of bed. "If anyone can _appear_ welcoming, it's you." Céline's greatest ambitions were to attend the Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts before auditioning for the elite French playhouses on the Avenue de la Lisette.

Now divested of her bedcovers, Céline drapes an arm over her face instead, still grumbling. "This friend sounds rather _important_ to you, Fleur."

Much to her own surprise, Fleur has the answer ready.

"Very," she promises, sparing a brief thought for the past four days of absurdity and upheaval and another for Hermione herself.

Céline peeks out from under her arm. Try as she might, Fleur doesn't know what to make of that look. She's seen Céline delighted and devastated and affronted and proud over the years, but never so... _shrewd_. Perhaps Fleur should've joined the team of Unspeakables, not the Curse-Breakers.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Céline demands, breaking the spell. "Let's go!"

Her efforts get Céline moving, but it isn't until after eleven that Fleur has a group willing to brave the walk to the Great Hall. She spies Hermione sitting with Ron and Harry, and returns Hermione's sharp look for her lateness with a shrug. _I tried_ , she mouths, getting only a frown in reply.

Feeling that frown aimed at her forehead like one of Hawkeye's arrows, Fleur plays with her food, waiting until the others recover some cognitive function to broach the subject. Perenelle worries at a thread on Fleur's sleeve, trilling her musical cry so Fleur will stroke the beast's wings again.

"Say," she ventures after a while, browbeaten into following Hermione's ridiculous script to the letter, "would anyone like to meet a friend of mine?"

Céline surfaces eagerly from her coffee cup. Hugo and Giselle stop kissing and look round.

"Formally, this time?" Edgar asks, teasing.

"Of course," Henry answers for everyone, tousling his hair a bit more artfully in a reflection from a spoon. "I'll give her a warm welcome."

"Not as warm as mine," Charles is quick to interject, never to be outdone.

"Is that the girl who came to the carriage?" Emma whispers to Isabeau, who shrugs, already bored. Unperturbed by all, Fleur waves Hermione over.

"Where are you going?" Ron demands, startling Harry and the Gryffindors, but Hermione just bustles to Fleur's side without another word and settles into her seat. Beauxbatons shifts its attention to the interloper at once, reminding Fleur of a business of jarveys clustering around a knarl.

"Mademoiselle Granger," Edgar greets, diplomatically shifting to English, "right? Potter's friend?"

"Potter's _girlfriend_ ," Isabeau murmurs. Emma snickers. That particular article of Rita Skeeter's entertained the Beauxbatons carriage for a week, Fleur recalls, but it had only angered her at the time, as Skeeter only deigned to mention 'Flore Delacroix' and 'Victor Krastev' in the very last line.

With the same frosty restraint Fleur witnessed in the Shrieking Shack, Isabeau's comment goes uncontested. "Hermione, please," she asks of Edgar.

"Try to pronounce zat!" Fleur orders, going off the cuff. Hermione raises an eyebrow. Baited by such a challenge, the efforts begin immediately.

" _'Erm_..." Hugo pauses, then cedes his defeat with a shrug.

"Hur-my-knee?" Giselle suggests, patting Hugo's arm in consolation.

"'Ermy-oh-nee," Céline tries, already well on her way to disappointment. "Errr-mee-oh-nn!"

"Hermione," Henry declares, bolstered to smugness by Hermione's nod of confirmation. "I _did_ spend most of a term in an exchange at Ilvermorny..."

"Until you angered ze headmaster," Charles says, sliding closer to divest Hermione of her ignorance. "Professor Fontaine walked in on 'im and—"

"She doesn't need to know that!" Henry blusters, aghast.

Sacha snorts into his cereal. Emma and Isabeau smirk. Paul and Manon smother their laughter behind flagons of pumpkin juice. Fleur rolls her eyes.

"What _I_ would like to know," Céline declares, leaning forward with that odd and shrewd look once more, "is how you two met one anuzzer."

Fortunately for Fleur and Hermione, that question was anticipated. Still, it is something to consider, Fleur realizes, stepping on Hermione's foot to prompt her to speak. In the midst of their next scheme, it should be worth noting how these grand plans of theirs actually _look_. Seemingly out of nowhere, Fleur befriended a girl not only two years her junior, but from Hogwarts, the place and school that she so regularly disparaged (last time).

"In the library," Hermione answers, recognizing her cue to take the lead. "Fleur offered to tutor me for my O.W.L.s—"

"In exchange for...'English lessons'?" Giselle asks with all the airs of an Auror following up on a case.

"Yes, and she's been a _very_ good student so far," Hermione explains, brisk again. "I also think Fleur is really taking this competition seriously."

"Oh?" Céline prompts, glancing sideways to gauge a reaction. Fleur keeps her face blank.

"Of course. We're here to mingle with wizards and witches unlike ourselves, aren't we? It would be the same if your school hosted the tournament," Hermione says, sounding so thoughtful that Fleur wonders if her musings are real or faked. Likely real, Fleur decides, as Hermione Granger never stops thinking. She gives them all a shrug now, laying a trap of her own devising. "Surely I would enjoy Beauxbatons if I spent a term there..."

 _Checkmate_ , Fleur thinks with admiration, listening as nearly everyone chimes in their agreement and rattles off their favorite things about Beauxbatons, school secrets be damned. The grounds, Hugo insisted, illustrating this thing and that thing with his hands. The palace, Céline sighed, dreamy as she had been as a girl when their class first gazed upon the building. The fountains. The gardens. The hedge maze. The tunnels _beneath_ the maze, Charles proclaimed. The art galleries. The salons. The theatre. The chapel. The paddock for Abraxan racing, Henry asserted, airing his own future ambitions. On and on it goes until Fleur feels the group is less wary of Hermione, allowing her to steer them elsewhere.

"You must see Beauxbatons someday, 'Ermione," Fleur opines, getting back to her lines. "Per'aps I will bring you zere myself."

"I would be honored."

Angling to keep hold of their attention this time, Fleur addresses the lot in a much quieter voice, counting on the promise of intrigue to do her some favors. "Now zat we are all acquainted, 'Ermione 'oped for us to join her in 'Ogsmeade," she says after all the chatter has died down.

"Whatever for?" Giselle asks.

"Well, when Fleur and I started our tutoring, we thought to ourselves, 'why is it only us? Why isn't anyone else trying to get to know each other?' This competition is about establishing ties between our schools, after all, so we want to do just that. As for the rest of you, the more the merrier."

"George said your next weekend trip isn't for another month," says Manon. Beauxbatons students, meanwhile, could come and go as they pleased.

"George and I know how to enter the village undetected," Hermione admits, so blasé about it that a few incredulous glances are exchanged around her. Fleur, meanwhile, tries to imagine this conversation without her prior knowledge. Will the lure of a mystery be enough to sway someone along?

"And why do you want to get into Hogsmeade so badly, _ma chère_?" Henry asks, voicing the curiosity that has fallen upon the benches.

"Why not?" says Hermione, then continues, familiarly conspiratorial now, "I also have a meeting with some friends that I'd rather not miss, you see."

"A 'meeting'?" Isabeau repeats before she can stop herself, forgetting her indifference.

"Well, yes," Hermione answers, drawing out the suspense until the last moment. "Professor Karkaroff is rather strict, so Viktor can't stay long—"

Before Fleur's eyes, the pin drops. Perhaps _that_ will do the trick, she supposes, marshaling the next volley, a not-so-casual mention of a celebrity...

" _Veektor_?" Emma squawks, staring at Hermione in unflattering shock. "Veektor _Krum_? You know him?"

"Of course," Hermione replies almost confusedly, as if Viktor were not a famous athlete. _Oh, well played_! "We met in the library."

"And now he wants to meet you in Hogsmeade with his friends...?" Céline concludes, glancing Fleur's way again with a puzzled look.

"Viktor wants to meet _everyone_ ," Fleur corrects, stepping in again and hoping Hermione had come up with more or less the same explanation for the Durmstrang students when she pitched this idea to him. "'E would like to get to know 'Ogwarts and Beauxbatons better during 'is stay 'ere."

"Why do you need _us_ , then?" Edgar wonders, voicing the question that has been waiting in the wings all along.

Manon smiles when Hermione does, clearly recognizing a possibility for mischief when she sees one.

"I need you all to distract a shopkeeper," Hermione confesses, "so _we_ can sneak into the village through a secret passageway."

This revelation sits as restlessly among the group as the idea of Hermione knowing Viktor Krum. Fleur tries to imagine what they are thinking.

"The castle has those?" Hugo asks with delight, oblivious to the bewilderment and disquiet around him.

"Plenty," Hermione answers, just as she and Fleur had discussed last night. "Before the term is over, perhaps Fleur and I can show you them all...?"

"Zis will make your stay at 'Ogwarts fun," Fleur adds, upping the ante. "I am sure a distraction from your classes is more zan welcome."

"Fun _and_ informative," Hermione remarks, now barreling through a point that Fleur shot down. "Who doesn't enjoy a good history lesson?"

"And you may use today as an opportunity to find a date for ze Yule Ball," Fleur pipes up, swiftly dredging up a point that Hermione vetoed.

Hermione steps on her foot.

 _We are throwing things at the wall and hoping they will stick_. Wincing, Fleur watches the group digest the information, hoping the multifaceted prospect is appealing to some of them. This will be their first foray into pushing the schools together. Can a trickle of interest become a flood?

"Well, _I'm_ going," Manon declares, enthused even as Hermione departs for her table, promising to see Fleur soon. "Will George be coming along?"

"Yes," Fleur answers, knowing all too well that the Weasley twins would never turn down a chance to break a rule, baited or not.

"We'll go," Giselle says, speaking for herself and her new boyfriend in the tidy manner of couples.

"I'm free," Céline adds, hangover apparently cured.

"Count us in," Edgar says as Perenelle climbs up his arm and settles atop his shoulder. "The squirrels are getting cheeky in the village!"

Division occurs after the last voice—Henry—has acquiesced. To Fleur's dismay, Paul, Charles, Sacha, Isabeau, and Emma decline the invitation.

"Why do you want to socialize with Durmstrang?" Sacha demands of Fleur now. "That school denies entry to wizards like your little friend!"

"This Tournament is about making _new_ friends," Fleur reminds him, "and perhaps Viktor doesn't believe the same things as Karkaroff..."

Her words fall short of reassuring Sacha, although there is no simple way to say to anyone here that Fleur _does_ know that Viktor Krum believes otherwise. In the future—rather, the _alternate_ future—Fleur and Viktor corresponded every other week after Cedric's death. It was in those letters she learned that in his native Bulgaria, Viktor and his family were just some of many purebloods pressuring the Durmstrang board of governors to change their tradition and let Muggle-borns into the school instead of forcing them to go as far as Koldovstoretz for a proper magical education. He was still waiting on their decision, if Fleur remembers correctly, though that potential shift has been pushed backwards a year. The thought of not being so friendly with Viktor again is a sobering idea indeed, so Fleur puts it out of her head, clinging to the hopeful mood that she woke up in.

"Of course he doesn't," Henry says scathingly, rounding on Sacha from his seat. "Three members of Krum's team are like Granger!"

Some Ravenclaws turn round at the rising noise level further along the table, but Giselle only waves them off.

"This Tournament is about winning!" Paul protests, Isabeau and Emma nodding along. "When you win the Cup, we'll be tied against Hogwarts!"

 _Is that all you care about_? Fleur forces herself not to ask, because the answer is as obvious as it is understandable. When Harry's place in the Tournament was still being fiercely debated, Fleur's concerns laid solely with the glory she could bring to Beauxbatons and her own reputation.

"I have my coursework to finish," Emma says, politely disinterested. "Enjoy yourselves. Coming, Isabeau...?"

"I can't join you either." Isabeau doesn't bother to feign any courtesy. "Unlike you, we are not exempt from our final exams. Excuse us."

"I'm sorry, Fleur, but I simply don't see the point," Charles adds as the girls leave. Fleur has to envy him for all his surety; thanks to the Goblet of Fire, Charles has little to worry about this term but his grades and his love life. "We aren't staying here after you win. This won't _change_ anything."

 _Another problem we overlooked_ , Fleur realizes, watching him go. To push the schools together, they had to chip away at old biases and in some cases, fresh wounds. Some were fond of the supposed superiority of the wizarding world over the Muggle one, but prejudices cut deeply here as well, rotting a seemingly perfect apple from the inside out. _Three members of Krum's team are like Granger_ , Henry said, thinking not once of Giselle, Sacha, or Hugo, all of whom hailed from homes with no more magic than that found in their daytime serials. _Mudblood_ , Malfoy sneered of Hermione before strutting off, confident that he would not be punished for his impertinence. Fleur also cannot pretend that Beauxbatons doesn't possess its own unpleasantries, however hallowed she thought its halls to be; her ancestry put whispers in her wake, placing every hard-earned grade and commendation into question. Everything they threw at the wall had to not only stick, Fleur now understands, but break down the wall.

Who from _Beauxbatons_ would play a game with a student of Hogwarts or Durmstrang? For now, only half of them. Maybe.

Not for the first time, she fights the sense of being overwhelmed by more responsibility than anyone could possibly handle, even with a partner.

"We'll be in the village if Madame Maxime asks for us," she finally offers of Paul and Sacha, the last of the opposition to remain. "Join us next time."

While the rest of Beauxbatons considers her proposal, heads bent together and debating in furious hisses, Fleur wanders over to the Hufflepuff table, spotting her quarry among a group of sixth-years. She waves to Branstone as she passes by, earning a tiny smile and a wave for her trouble.

"Cedric?" Fleur asks when she reaches him, making the conversation draw to an abrupt halt. Cedric looks up in surprise. "May we speak privately?"

Whispers erupt. Eyes glaze over. Cedric nods, gaze flitting to the Ravenclaws. He joins her near the doors, puzzled and immune to the thrall, for which she is thankful. Relations between the two of them are much warmer than that of Fleur and the other boys, a fact she will gladly rely on.

"Do not worry," she tells him, guessing his concerns about Cho Chang with an airy laugh. Truthfully, she _had_ settled for Roger after Cedric's gentlemanly rejection. To save her pride, she won't ask him again. "I only wanted to know if you weeshed to join my friends and I in 'Ogsmeade."

"Why?"

"Viktor is meeting us zere," Fleur explains, trying a different approach on a whim, "if you aren't afraid to come along."

Cedric smiles at that, just as she hoped. "Afraid?"

"Of ze competition," Fleur says, playful. "'Arry is also attending...if you do not join all of us, per'aps you will fall behind in ze Tournament..."

Cedric's smile becomes a full blown grin, albeit one rife with incredulity. "Teaming up against each other is against the rules, you know."

"Break ze rules, Cedric," Fleur advises, willing her voice not to waver as she drinks in the sight of him, imbibing on the unmistakable signs of life his body had lacked when Harry returned from Little Hangleton. This is the first time she has spoken to him in years, though it's only been two weeks for him. Fleur had mumbled something encouraging in his direction before clamming up thanks to the idea of facing a much bigger version of Perenelle; Cedric's brief and kind reply only deepened her interest in him. After he died and she prepared to leave Hogwarts, Fleur saw just how far he extended similar kindnesses to those around the castle. Even the _ghosts_ wept for him. "One should always 'ave a little fun while you can, no?"

Oblivious to her turmoil, Cedric gives her a rueful look.

"I appreciate the offer, but, erm...Cho and I already have plans," he confesses, glancing over Fleur's shoulder with waning hesitation. "Don't tell her, but I'm not as rubbishy at History of Magic as she thinks. Mostly I like to let her talk. Somehow she makes giant wars seem interesting, you know?"

Despite herself, Fleur feels her mood lifting. " _Charmant_ , Cedric. Do you plan to ask her to ze Ball?"

He brightens, thinking little of confiding a secret in a stranger, although after facing dragons together, she supposes any conversation of theirs is no longer quite so strange. This morning, she would like to see this admission of his as an act of trust. "Today, actually," Cedric says. "Any advice?"

"None at all," Fleur replies with another laugh. This future needs no meddling from her. "I am not a Seer, but I assure you...she will say yes."

Cedric holds up his hands. "Far be it from me to argue with such a sure thing. Should we rain check that Hogsmeade invitation, then?"

Tempted to summon her English dictionary, Fleur tilts her head to the side, bewildered. "'Rain check'?"

"It's an American thing," Cedric explains, taking pity on her. "Baseball. Those Muggles are mad for it. It just means we'll reschedule."

 _Bah! What was this obsession with American media that I keep seeing_...?

Perhaps she ought not to judge Cedric so fast. Many of her favorite wonder tales are Beedle's, the _English_ bard (even if he is no Madame d'Aulnoy).

"Bring Cho with you, next time," she suggests, content to temporarily cut her losses. She has all year to endear Cedric to the mission. One excursion without him, though disappointing for its lack, won't foretell his untimely death. "Let us show you 'ow ze French make merry."

"I'll hold you to that!" he calls toward her retreating back, and Fleur smiles.

* * *

When Fleur has a much diminished line of ducklings trailing after her for the second time in a matter of days, Céline speaks up, apropos of nothing.

"Have you taken a Calming Draught?" Céline asks, torn between mirth and puzzlement. "We all thought you would tell Isabeau to shut her mouth!"

Taking offense, Fleur does not answer. Her temper isn't _that_ bad, surely?

"Have you taken a love potion?" Giselle prompts, keeping pace with them and grinning. "That would explain far more!"

Fleur ignores that too.

"Of course not," Edgar protests. Fleur shoots him a grateful look. "We would've seen that!" Her gratitude ebbs away just moments later, replaced with stinging betrayal as Edgar's expression grows sheepish. "But I _am_ rather curious about your... _defense_ of Hermione against that Malfoy brat..."

This sets the flock abuzz again, much to Fleur's exasperation.

"Of course!" proclaims Giselle, smacking a hand to her own forehead. "And we still have no idea what to make of your hush-hush conversations..."

"Perhaps H— _Miss Granger_ used a secret passageway to deliver the potion to your room," Hugo posits gamely. "We would never know."

"She wouldn't get past the carriage's defenses," Fleur bites out, unable to hold her tongue any longer.

"Not unless invited," Henry points out, so sly with implication that there is an outburst of giggling. She glares at Perenelle in lieu of a better target, who's now taken to chasing after a bug. Grumbling, Fleur soldiers her way onto the grounds, patience fraying thin as the jokes go on even as Hogsmeade comes into view. What she wouldn't give for the thestral drawn carriages that Céline gossiped about last time, if only for a distraction.

When they find themselves outside Honeydukes almost an hour later and waiting to spring the trap, Manon turns her attention back to them all.

"I volunteer," she declares, looking more devilish than a pixie. "I'll draw out the owners."

"You'll be banned forever," Hugo eagerly points out, "but I'll help!"

Maybe Fleur ought to worry about wrinkling the fabric of the past so audaciously, but instead she's riddled with excitement. This prank is a novelty, needless and new, but fun! It's a way to immerse herself back to the beat that everyone but Fleur and Hermione dances to. And today has no comparison, no parallel. She wouldn't be found among any student of Hogwarts or Durmstrang in the old past unless truly necessary; in this fashion, she has no idea what will happen next. Unpredictability, Fleur muses, will become as potent and dangerous as a glass of firewhiskey.

Perhaps she ought to worry about tempting fate, acting so reckless and arrogant, but Fleur has tempted fate plenty already. Let it court _her_.

Smiling, Fleur beckons them closer. "A few bewitched snowballs should do. Try not to break any of the windows, if you can."

With a kiss apiece for luck from Giselle, Manon and Hugo hurry toward to a safe distance, hooting like children. Giselle laughs.

"I can't say I've ever seen _you_ masterminding a scheme before," she observes of Fleur, jumping back to the ribbing without hesitation.

"No," Céline agrees, singsong, "don't you remember, darling? Fleur was always much too busy with her schoolwork for mischief."

While Fleur heaves a long-suffering sigh, Edgar kisses her cheek in consolation. "Don't fret, Fleur. We'll let up soon. It's just...well, you so rarely—"

"Branch out?" Céline opines, dodging Fleur's swipe with a leap and a pirouette...right into a puddle.

"Lighten up?" Giselle reckons, mimicking Fleur's scowl.

"Relax?" Henry muses, the last head of the hydra. She resists the urge to cuff him on the ear, for all the good it would do.

"Enough," Fleur complains with ill grace. "Look ahead, won't you? Manon and Hugo are starting..."

Twirling her wand like a baton, a distant Manon mutters a spell, enchants the nearest drift into a flock of snowballs, and then sends them careening toward the sweetshop like a shower of meteors. Hugo's own spell makes the snowballs drum along the panes to the beat of _Venez Divin Messie_.

Less than a minute later, the door slams open, rattling on its hinges.

"OI!" Ambrosius Flume roars, spotting Manon and Hugo across the street. A crowd of customers follows him out, but only Fleur sees the numbers grow slightly and fill with familiar faces. Even Mrs. Flume peers over the heads of the Weasley twins, looking scandalized. "BUGGER—OFF!"

"Nous sommes désolés, monsieur!" Hugo shouts back, frantically shaking his wand out like it's a bottle of champagne. "Eet's my wand—"

"You need anuzzer one!" Manon shouts back in her best imitation of Charles and Fleur's accents, accidentally-on-purpose sending more snowballs at Flume when she reaches for Hugo to steady him. Giselle turns away, shoulders shaking with mirth. "We shall go to Ollivander's, zen! Allons-y!"

Swearing, Flume returns to his shop, followed by half the crowd. The rest of it lingers outside, then wanders over to where Fleur is standing.

"Manon was very...believable," says Hermione in lieu of a greeting, giving Fleur an unconvinced look.

"Céline is ze actress," Fleur says, pointedly taking no notice of Céline's exaggerated bow. "Manon prefers to play her tricks from afar."

"Well," Fred Weasley declares, rubbing his hands together and interrupting with the typical Weasley gusto, "here we are."

"There we go," Hermione counters, indicating the blind knoll leading to the Shrieking Shack. "That's where we'll meet the students of Durmstrang."

Fleur studies the Hogwarts group now, wishing it was bigger. _As big as our plans_. Aside from herself, Giselle, Hugo, Henry, Edgar, Manon, and Céline, Hermione rounded up her own handful of attendants—the Weasley twins, Harry and Ron, and Angelina Johnson. A pair of Gryffindor girls. Lee, a boy that Bill mentioned once upon a time. Even Neville Longbottom stands among them, looking nervous. Introductions are made quickly, putting names to unknown faces (Katie Bell, the girl that's long since outgrown her father's desktop picture, and Alicia Spinnet, Katie's girlfriend).

Awkwardness lingers in the air, heavier than the cold, but Fleur joins the walk in spite of her discomfort, and presses on.

"Where was your passageway?" Fleur asks Hermione, playacting again. "Some of us are desperate to know..."

"Do tell!" Hugo chirps from the back.

"On the third floor, behind the statue of the One-Eyed Witch."

"Perhaps you and I should visit this passage," Giselle suggests to Hugo, smiling. He waggles his eyebrows in reply, earning a chuckle from Henry. Just as Fleur starts to worry that the groups will stay separated, coexisting as peacefully as poisons and antidotes, there is a crack in the ice.

"Just watch out for Mr. Filch," Angelina warns. Katie grimaces in commiseration. "He knows most of the good hiding places."

"So does Mrs. Norris," Alicia adds, wrinkling her nose.

Another beat. While Fleur listens on tenterhooks to a conversation that is only beginning to flourish, Harry drops his voice to speak to Hermione.

"I thought we were meeting your study group."

"This _is_ my study group," Hermione says patiently, seemingly unconcerned with any holes in her story. "We needed more space."

"Why would you _want_ to study with Durmstrang and Beauxbatons?" Ron asks in disbelief. "Angelina would've helped you if you asked..."

"For ze O.W.L.s, of course," Fleur chimes in, determined to widen the gap in the ice. "Ze practical is ze most important part of ze testing process."

Ron blushes red as soon as Fleur is near enough, but Harry seems only curious, a little wary, and to Fleur's relief, immune to the thrall.

"That's generous of you."

"Eet is ze least I can do." With a start, she realizes this is the first time she's spoken to Harry since the Department of Mysteries. While it is a relief to find him whole and healthy again, anxiousness creeps into her skin like the cold. Around him, Fleur can't shake the feeling of being his own personal Grim. Pairing that fear with a persona that no longer suits her pushes Fleur's confidence from this morning far and away. Should she apologize to him now, or pass off her initial frostiness and contempt without a word? "'Ermione was courteous enough to...correct my Eenglish."

After a pause, Harry cracks a smile. "Don't worry," he confides in a stage whisper, "she corrects _mine_ , too."

"I do not," says Hermione, huffing a bit as they ascend the slope.

"You do," Ron protests, pulling his hat down further over his ears. "And our spells! Remember _Wingardium Leviosa_?"

"You needed my help! If you pronounced it wrong you would've blown off your eyebrows like Seamus!"

Fleur stifles a laugh in the nick of time, but Neville, newly in earshot, chuckles aloud, giving Fleur another shock.

"He burned off the hair on the back of his head, too," he recalls, turning his smile to the sky. "Peeves wrote a song about it."

"Peeves," Fleur grumbles, recovering enough to grow sour and earning a round of Céline's tinkling laughter.

"Fleur hates him," she announces, easily attracting attention to herself. "I once heard a plot to exorcise him from your castle!"

Amidst murmurs of approval, there is a shuffling in the traipsing group until Fleur is presented with the sight of the wiliest Weasleys.

"The secret to dealing with Peeves—" Fred advises.

"—is to call the Bloody Baron," George finishes, swinging the hand of his linked with Manon's. "When the Baron puts his foot down, Peeves listens."

"'Ow 'orrible," Fleur retorts with a shiver. A ghost so frightening that a poltergeist fled from him? She has no desire to ever meet this Baron.

She's spared from further discussion as the group finds the whorls of magic left by the Durmstrang students to mark the way. The knoll soon opens up to the clearing next to the Shrieking Shack, the same spot that Fleur and Hermione used to enter Hogwarts without attracting attention. That day and its battle seems closer to a nightmare than a reality that they had left behind less than a week ago, Fleur decides, thinking of their desperate trek to the castle to warn Harry or anyone that could listen of what was coming. It is more picturesque now, Fleur must admit, relieved by this fact; surrounded on four sides by great oaks, the clearing is bedecked with shooting targets, a stock of arrows so large that Fleur would bet Galleons and Bezants on the use of the Doubling Charm, and finally, a score of quivers. Beside the targets, Viktor raises his hand to wave.

"Viktor _Krum_ is in your study group?" Ron squeaks.

After Fleur and Hermione present their respective parties again, Viktor introduces the small band of Durmstrang fellows in turn: Ebbe, Jakob, Ragna, Helene, and Misha. They are met cordially, shyly, although Ragna sneers at Henry, likely the same girl to douse him in espresso yesterday in Madam Puddifoot's. In lieu of schoolwork, Viktor explains, he arranged a lark few wizards here would succeed at without wandwork—archery. Students of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang dare to exchange mirthful looks with one another as Fleur smiles to herself. This is not so new to _them_.

The students of Hogwarts, however, drift toward the targets, laden with doubt and derision. Fred Weasley wonders why they ought to bother.

"I can just shoot one of these into the sky," he dismisses, chortling, "like the Appleby lot."

"You won't always have your wand with you," Harry observes, drawing the eyes of everyone around him. His words are calm but flat, belying some fright that left him helpless if Fleur has to guess. She shivers again. Few wizards want to think of a time where they will not be able to defend themselves, herself included, although her grandmother's teachings had alleviated this fear somewhat. "Magic isn't always going to help you."

This bleak idea is drowned out by George with feigned solemnity. "Right," he proclaims. "That basilisk got skewered by Gryffindor's _sword_..."

Sidestepping the boys and not making the effort to ask after the punchline, Fleur makes her way through the throng towards Hermione. To her delight and horror, Hermione's picked up a bow and a single arrow like everyone else, but joins the others in mixed results. Fleur arrives at her side just in time to avert calamity, with Viktor at her heels, and hears the students of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang begin to critique their Hogwarts counterparts on their forms. It makes her wish that Hogwarts joined its fellows in the teaching of arts that Muggles still favor, for their own sake.

" _'Ermione_ ," Fleur chides, stalling the bow's upward trajectory with a touch; Viktor gently pats Hermione's hand that grips the arrow.

"I'd like to try," Hermione protests, already on her way to offended by the sound of her voice and the sharpness of her eyes, but Viktor only smiles.

"Ve vould like to let you try," says Viktor, glancing at Fleur in askance, "but you do not haff the proper stance yet."

"There's a stance?"

"Oh, yes. I am surprised you haff not read about it in one of your books..."

While Hermione is distracted, Fleur corrects the position of her feet and hips, steals her hat, and promptly returns to her fussing with a tie.

"What are you doing?" Hermione demands.

Viktor sounds like he is fighting a laugh now. "She vants your hair out of the vay, Hermy-own. This vill help vith your shooting."

Once Hermione is standing appropriately and won't scalp herself with an arrow, Fleur crowds her again, adjusting the position of her arms.

"Is all of this really necessary?" Hermione asks, bright red.

"For your safety, yes," Fleur answers, tilting Hermione's chin ever so slightly to her left. Hermione huffs.

"Ve are taking every precaution," Viktor adds, offering Hermione a leather glove, an arm bracer, and a chest guard. "Now, notch your arrow."

Fleur takes up the song, ignoring the clear window of opportunity left for her to leave them alone. Viktor would have the Yule Ball to act on any designs of Hermione; Fleur is only here to ensure that the lesson will be mastered. "But don't raise your bow yet. Seemply _look_ at the target first."

"Shoulders down, please," Viktor points out, tapping the closest one of Hermione's with a finger. "But no crouch—no slouching."

"And do not rotate your elbow, 'Ermione."

She hears a ripple of Celine's giggles and Edgar's shushing across the clearing, though Fleur pays them no mind.

Hermione obeys, following every suggestion that gets in edgewise between Fleur and Viktor, until they both judge her ready to try.

"Pull your string back," Fleur says, standing a little too close despite her warnings. Hermione's hand moves to rest below her jawbone. "We call zis, 'kissing the string'." She watches a blush spread across Hermione's face for a moment. "Stay," Fleur continues, pleased to watch Hermione take aim—and the orders—with few complaints. Somehow the others in the clearing have disappeared. "Stay...now, let ze string slide from your fingers."

Fleur hears the arrow hit some point on the target, but her focus lingers on Hermione, watching the follow through of her hand as it ghosts along Hermione's cheek and falls. Struck with a thought as the targets around them are with arrows, Fleur must admit it—perhaps Hermione was wiser than Fleur expected to ask that they become friends. There is only one person alive who can understand what Fleur may be feeling at any moment. In that way, she will always have someone willing to listen to errant worries before they spin out of control. Fleur, too, can offer the same comfort...

Lured from her reverie when she is met with a familiar expectant look and its flare of curiosity, Fleur blinks and opens her mouth to speak.

"Vell?" Viktor prompts before Fleur can say anything, reappearing and bringing the volume of the world back with him. "Vot did you think?"

Flustered, Hermione clears her throat, dropping her eyes. "I...need more data to answer that question, actually."

Fleur offers a quiver and its fresh stock of arrows before Viktor can, content to see that data gathered, piece by piece. "By all means."

She and Viktor watch Hermione for awhile until the others come back into focus by way of sound and sight, griping about being bored and casting their bows into the snow. Viktor steps to the center of the clearing, nodding agreeably as one of his classmates shouts a suggestion in Bulgarian.

"You," Viktor says, gazing around for inspiration and settling at last on Henry, "can you fight?"

"I am the best of Beauxbatons!" Henry declares, bereft of Charles's necessary put-downs. He wrestles himself free of his coat and sets it aside.

Viktor peels off his jumper, startling a beetle that was drifting in his direction.

"I thought wizards _hated_ Muggle dueling," Hermione mumbles, watching the rapidly developing scrap from the gaps between her fingers. Fleur laughs over the new upswing of noise as students from each school form a ring around the boys, shouting encouragements and hedging bets.

"British wizards, you mean," Fleur corrects. "On ze Continent, we're taught to mingle better with ze Non—with ze Muggles."

"How?"

Fleur inches out of the way so the kickback of the wrestlers won't dirty her clothes. "At Beauxbatons, for example, we are still taught etiquette, fencing, archery, dancing, equestrian disciplines...even diplomacy. When we leave ze grounds for ze last time, we are expected to be polymaths."

"And wrestling falls under which category?"

"Durmstrang protects eets secrets well, but from we can tell, zey continue ze traditions found among ze Vikings. Hunting, wrestling, swimming..."

"But _why_?"

"To mingle, 'Ermione," Fleur reminds her. "To hide. Wizarding communities are small. Not socializing with your neighbors was— _is_ —dangerous. Eet is wise to learn what you can about zem, such as ze way zey fight and fare, should zey ever call upon you for aid. Your own Gryffindor dueled Muggles and wizards alike on ze battlefield." The veela never missed opportunities to cross swords with their enemies, either, though Fleur is certain the days of fighting for territory are long gone; instead, clans cloister close, live quietly, and pass on their stories to the next generation.

"The Intentional Statute of Secrecy didn't go into effect until 1692," Hermione points out skeptically, "the Vikings were gone long before that."

"Traditions remain. Quidditch is already nine hundred years old. Ze Triwizard Tournament ran for six centuries before it was disbanded. I am told you 'ave kept your Sorting ceremony since 'Ogwarts opened eets doors. If we are to live in secret among Muggles, we must adopt zeir traditions."

There is a pause.

"More to the point, I thought you didn't want to give anyone a history lesson," Hermione says, brows furrowed.

Fleur shrugs. Belatedly realizing that Hermione's hat was still clutched in her hands, she returns it.

" _You_ 'ave many questions, and I 'ave ze answers. Eet was no trouble."

Henry wrangles Viktor into a headlock. Fleur feels the Time-Turner leave and return before their companionable silence is broken again.

"Durmstrang doesn't admit Muggle-borns," Hermione continues, looking pensive. Fleur imagines her thoughts are still ticking on, inexorable as time, poring over this fact and that fact until the puzzle is complete. "Why bother socializing with Muggles if they're considered so 'inferior'?"

"Your books are biased," Fleur says simply, opting to let Viktor explain his views to Hermione. Perhaps that is something they discuss at the Ball?

"Then give me _your_ books," Hermione insists, "so I can learn about all of this."

"Certainly."

Hermione's habit of haggling surfaces again.

"As long as you read _Hogwarts, A History_."

Fleur wrinkles her nose. She has no time for yet another endeavor, even if it is only a book. "Whatever for?"

"I thought knowing more about Hogwarts would give you less to complain about," Hermione elaborates in a lofty voice.

"Very well," Fleur grumbles, resigned to cutting her losses again. What's one more thing?

The wrestling goes on and on, pulling nearly everyone into the fray. Edgar conjures laurels out of mid-air to crown the winners. The Weasleys fight to a stand-off. Ron bests Harry. Harry bests Lee. Angelina scrapes a victory from Alicia after many cobbings. Céline distracts Giselle long enough to send her sprawling. Ebbe outmatches Viktor by a hair. Ragna loses to Manon by way of trickery and well-timed taunts. Hugo and Jakob are forced to a draw. Standing on the outskirts with Hermione and listening to the cheers and groans from their assembled parties, Fleur finds herself at ease.

"Zis is not 'ow I imagined our day to be," she confesses, so low that it is only for Hermione's hearing. Archery and wrestling aren't tours or friendlies, but Fleur enjoys the results anyway. These pastimes felt natural, normal, as if _this_ group and _that_ group got along on the first try.

"Neither did I," Hermione agrees, likely thinking of the ideas and 'surgical strikes' they'll need to postpone. "But it's rather nice, isn't it?"

"I can only 'ope zis...momentum of our mission is like your shooting."

"I missed half of those," Hermione protests, nevertheless amused.

"Some hit ze target! Do not forget zat, 'Ermione. Some effort is always better zan none."

 _We have to focus on what we can do_ , Hermione had said just yesterday. Fleur follows up with a question, remembering her promise.

"And you?" Fleur prompts of her newest field partner. _No_ , she corrects herself quickly, even easily, _my friend_. "'Ow are you feeling?"

Hermione considers that whilst clapping for Viktor's triumph over Misha. "Hopeful, I suppose. I like to think we're doing the right thing."

This right thing—wobbling ever onward in fits and starts, like some untransfigured animal between metamorphoses—will close out the fourth day of their expedition, she realizes. It is a relief to know that they didn't spend _all_ of it amidst tea and textbooks. She tilts her head to the crowd now. "I can't believe zis worked," Fleur admits, gazing at the small delegations of each school, briefly united by a game that needs no magic whatsoever.

"It's like we're chaperoning another Yule Ball," Hermione muses.

"Or a single's meexer at Reynardine's in Diagon Alley," she whispers back.

With furtive looks around them, Hermione leans over to grasp Fleur's arm and pulls so she may pass on a secret without being overheard. Fleur bends down obligingly. "This was a good spot to meet," she murmurs, her breath tickling Fleur's ear and skin. " _Snuffles_ is living past the stile."

Briefly distracted, Fleur quirks an eyebrow when the words finally register in her brain, incredulous. "All along?"

_What an uproar that would arise if Sirius Black made himself known again in Hogsmeade..._

Hermione laughs, shaking her head in answer and stepping back. "Only after Harry mentioned his scar hurting. Buckbeak's with him."

The matches end soon after, with far too many laurels atop heads to count. Hearing her name, Fleur glances around for the source of the noise.

"Start building!" Edgar crows once he has her attention, gathering enough snow as if intending to build his own castle. "We're making snowmen!"

Seeing groups and pairs already hard at work, Hermione grabs Fleur by the hand and pulls her toward a pile of unclaimed snow. Any Muggle measures are quickly forgotten; she and Hermione summon drifts with magic and shape them into a form of their liking, hoping to best what appears to be a snow giant from the Weasley twins. Flakes and clumps of white bend into a woman with wings, making Hermione smirk.

"A snow veela, I presume?"

"Eet—eet was ze first zing zat came to mind!"

Hermione enchants the wings to flutter as the veela gains recognizable features; Fleur shows the effigy how to walk with a flick of her wand.

"Time's up!" Katie Bell cries, stalling the projects. Few are snowmen, Fleur notices, but no one seems to care. "Let's take a look!"

Some collaborations are successes, others not. Ebbe and Jakob's snowman blinks its button eyes, immobile; Neville, Harry, and Ron's figure wobbles on shaky legs and collapses; Hugo and Giselle's kneazle hisses like Crookshanks at the Time-Turner; Fred and George's giant roars and beats its chest to a powdery demise; Katie and Alicia's figure splits into a flock of birds by a well cast Avifors Spell; Lee and Angelina's bowtruckle brandishes claws; only Celine and Edgar's nymph comes closest to life when it dances about the clearing like its counterparts at Beauxbatons.

"And what do we have here?" Fred prompts, only to howl with laughter as Fleur and Hermione's veela takes flight and pelts Ron with a snowball.

"Hey!"

One snowball becomes two, then three, until the clearing is besieged by crumbling missiles and shouting on all sides. Ragna defends Céline; Henry dives to protect Ebbe; Fred and George attack each other and everyone else. Dodging Harry and his spectacular aim, Fleur is pulled behind an oak.

"Zis is some reward," Fleur jokes breathlessly, and Hermione laughs again, her gaze brighter than any charm.

"The best there is," she says, and then there's nothing left for Fleur to do but agree, gather their ammunition, and swagger back into the fray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I apologize for the very long delay between updates. What a tumultuous world we live in right now. 
> 
> I worked this chapter on-and-off for the past four months, but it was difficult. I want to say you just read the thirtieth version of it (I wish I was kidding, but I'm a perfectionist and still not totally happy with it). Some ideas were in the document since April, while other phrases and subplots came to me just yesterday and couldn't be ignored during the editing process. I also lost inspiration for awhile as I dealt with one loss in my family due to COVID-19, and another to long-term surgical complications. Writing this chapter was a good distraction, so I do hope it was worth the wait. Rest assured, I have no intention of abandoning this story.
> 
> If anyone is curious, this is what Perenelle [looks](https://i.redd.it/c7nqvvudth341.jpg) like, courtesy of _Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery_. 
> 
> And this [silly](https://i.imgflip.com/44un21.jpg) meme that I made is how Fleur and Hermione will behave until I change things up after the Yule Ball.
> 
> Lastly—Black Lives Matter, Trans rights are human rights, and wear a mask if you go anywhere, please. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

Much to Fleur's astonishment, Monday comes and goes without a hitch.

Still and rather stubbornly, she waited for the worst to happen. She searched the sky for odd cloud formations, anticipating an abrupt return to the future by way of a nightmarish vortex from the heavens. She scoured the halls between classes for echoes of herself and Hermione, keeping a lookout for paradoxes. For once embracing her most irksome sense, Fleur hunted for a hint of the rank malevolence that polluted the stonework of Hogwarts Castle after Cedric died, to no avail. It was only natural to be suspicious, Fleur judged, nevertheless mindful Hermione's advice to be less...imaginative. Eloise Mintumble was flung forward during her fifth and final day in 1402, and that had been with a functional Time-Turner and the by laws of its Hour-Reversal Charm obeyed to the letter. It was _wise_ to be cautious and so Fleur was...at least until Monday came to an end.

At length, Fleur finds nothing at all, save for the stinks that trail Barty Crouch Jr. wherever he goes, and the constant expiries of the Time-Turner. By Tuesday, Fleur loses the feeling that they've gotten away with murder; by Wednesday, the consequences—varied and bountiful—begin to pile up.

Perhaps influenced by her increasingly familiar presence at Hermione's side, Ron asks Fleur to the Yule Ball again, albeit earlier than expected. Or, at least, Fleur would've expected it, had she cared to remember the scene Ron had made when shouting the question at her over all the other things jockeying for position in her brain. Caught off guard and mid-conversation with Cedric, she's silent but nonetheless able to snatch Ron's wrist at the last second to stop him from running away. Before the Entrance Hall can ring with laughter at his misfortune, she hastens to speak.

"I'm sorry, Ronald, but I am attending with anuzzer," she tells him, tightening her grip. He breathes out in distress. "Will you save me a dance?"

This time, she'll be gentle with him. He, Ron, who stood up to Death-Eaters so he could help Harry, only to run afoul of the experiments in the Department of Mysteries. Ron, who resembles his brother so much that Fleur aches to go back to the life where Bill Weasley is so very dear to her.

Was so very dear to her.

"Y-yes," Ron squeaks as Fleur lets him go. Recovering his wits from her thrall, he gives her a shaky nod, like he's just remembered Fleur to be the girl that's joined him, Harry, and Hermione for meals since Sunday. Fleur smiles up at him, softening her expression in encouragement. "Yeah..."

Over the muttering of the crowd in the hall and the sight of Ron's not-so-ignominious exit, Cedric shoots Fleur a look.

"That was nice of you. Nicer than...well..."

"Monsieur Towler."

"Yes," Cedric agrees, although his voice suggests being of the opinion that Towler deserved the hexing he got after cornering Fleur in the Owlery.

"I can be nice," Fleur insists, enchanting Sacha's bag and books to smack and chase him for laughing uncontrollably at her latest rejection.

Adding insult to injury, there are titters of disbelief among the dispersing Beauxbatons students. Fleur rolls her eyes.

"Oh, I'm sure," Cedric teases, accepting Cho's kiss of greeting on the cheek with a sigh and bidding Fleur goodbye.

Fleur trails Sacha to a courtyard but he manages to give her the slip and hastens back to the carriage. Not long after, Hermione arrives.

"Now _I_ have a detention."

Forcing her attention from the Clock Tower's pendulum, Fleur's gaze finds Hermione's over the chime signaling the end of classes and the bustle of students fleeing to their breaks. After a week spent so closely in one another's company, it's safe for Fleur to wager that look of high dudgeon is not feigned. Though she's often found with troublemakers, Fleur has a strong inkling Hermione was quite protective of her own academic record.

Or, perhaps, in light of their Ministry misadventure, just her leisure time. Hermione mutters something about inconveniences and sneaks.

"Zat is not much like you." They set off for the grounds, passing a line of curious Hufflepuffs on the way back from Herbology. "May I ask why?"

"Why? I'll tell you. Someone knows we went to Hogsmeade," says Hermione, "and went running to Professor McGonagall about it."

"We were not very subtle, 'Ermione," Fleur points out, entering the Stone Circle. That had been the plan, after all...to be seen together. To be noticed. "If I recall, you were not so— _judicious_ when you said 'sneak into ze village' and 'secret passageway'. Any Ravenclaw could've reported you."

"Perhaps one of your classmates from Beauxbatons said something."

"Possibly."

Fixing her scarf, Hermione is still grumbling about her apparently awful morning. Fleur follows along.

"...and finally, after all that, some idiot asked me for advice on how best to chat you up!"

"And what did you say?"

"To stuff it!" Hermione shakes her head in disgust. "That's the fourth person to ask me after Patricia Stimpson and Lucian Bole, and I'm _sick_ of it."

So is Fleur, all acclimations aside.

In no mood to spar with Hermione in a battle of wills and wits, nor defend her boldest admirers, Fleur changes the subject. "Buck up," she commands, easing down a steep bank of the Black Lake with an arm spread crosswise to keep her balance, "and tell me of your progress so far."

Losing the thread of her irritation like steam pouring out of a kettle, Hermione concedes.

Over a fortnight, their journey across the grounds becomes a routine. Fleur feels less and less bound to timetables and former obligations now that they managed to survive what Mintumble could not; instead, there is a selfsame relief in the act of bowing her head and playing her role of champion as there is to pursuing unpredictability and plotting out new paths. Between lessons, revising, and idling away the days among friends, Fleur meets Hermione whenever possible to talk and to tutor, where, true to her word, Fleur offers Hermione a syllabus (but no quizzes, to Hermione's dismay). Before proceeding further into more advanced magic, Fleur introduced Hermione to a litany of spells better found in the sixth-year curriculum. Soon, Hermione masters the Gouging Spell, the Fire and Water-Making Spells, the Descending Charm, and the Slowing Charm.

" _Arresto Momentum_!"

A stone sinks gently into the water and disappears into the depths. Hermione looks pleased with herself.

"Now," Fleur declares, smiling, "we move on."

Her sessions with Hermione have grown to be the better part of Fleur's days. An excellent student, Hermione is predictably thorough and brimming with questions, not only about practical applications of each spell but theoretical ones, too. Fleur answers what she can and notes what she can't until they can track down the solutions in the library. They review magical theory exhaustively before getting into the brass tacks of posture, wand movement, incantations, concentration, and intention. Halfway through the third meeting and observing Hermione conjure a jet of water from nothing does Fleur realize why they're so appealing: she's taken at her word. Taken _seriously_. Her advice has weight and meaning. She's trusted.

"Already?" Hermione asks, failing to hide her eagerness. "What's next?"

"Nonverbal magic, I theenk."

"You _think_?"

As if the anticipation might kill her at any moment, Hermione adopts a beseeching look. Fleur laughs and relents.

"I know." She sets down her book and approaches Hermione, hearing pebbles clatter beneath her feet. "Ze first step is to free your mind of—"

"If you're just winding me up to...I don't know, start emptying my thoughts, or thinking of a happy memory, I already know what to do with both of those. Harry taught me how to do a Patronus Charm and I've read about Occlumency when he was having all those bad dreams about Voldemort."

Dumbledore's Army certainly wasn't idle during their run at Hogwarts. Impressed, Fleur files away the information for later.

"Check," Hermione says.

In Fleur's distraction, Hermione's resumed their little game. Outmaneuvered, Fleur is forced to answer.

"Zis kind of magic is not about emptying your mind like one does a cauldron," she scolds. "Nonverbal magic requires focus and feeling, not ze absence of eizzer. When I say to clear your mind, zis is...a suggestion, to 'elp you. We 'ave a long way to go before you can perform spells as I do."

"Okay, okay!"

At Fleur's behest, Hermione closes her eyes.

"Good." Fleur circles Hermione now. "Relax. Take in zis place. Let it calm you." She gestures, though Hermione can't see it, to the quiet bank along the lake that became their place of practice. Not far from the gamekeeper's cabin and the Beauxbatons carriage, Fleur likes the peacefulness it provides, and better yet, its privacy. "You 'ave been taught to access ze magic in your blood with ze use of a wand. What I ask is zis...what must you do to cast a spell? Tell me in ze seemplest terms. Though eet may not seem so," she amends, "zis is ze path to nonverbal and wandless magic."

"I think of a spell," Hermione answers, "then I cast it."

"What else?"

Hermione pauses, clearly deliberating something that has become second nature and therefore almost undefinable. "I...focus my magic?"

"Focus, yes, but not seemply your magic." Hermione's eyes open to follow Fleur's movements, drawn to the distraction and helping Fleur's point. "Any spell you weesh to cast needs your complete attention. Eet needs _all_ your wanting. You must _demand_ eet. I know you 'ave eemproved your skills over ze past five years at 'Ogwarts with your place at ze top of your class, but I am looking for more, 'Ermione. Do you understand why yet?"

"No..."

"No?" Fleur changes tack. "Zen you must tell me of ze very first magic you 'ave ever done. Per'aps zat shall make eet clearer to you."

"My first—before Hogwarts, you mean? When I was a child?"

Fleur nods, pauses, and smugly spots her chance to retaliate. "Check."

"Well..." Embarrassment floods Hermione's face, intriguing Fleur rather too quickly. "Right. I remember. I wanted a piece of candy, erm, very badly."

Fighting an urge to grin, Fleur motions for Hermione—and the game—to go on.

"My parents are dentists, you see. They tend to people's teeth, so they've always been, erm, rather _strict_ about sweets. One day, my mother and I went shopping at the market..." Hermione wrings her hands. "A girl at school had told me about these—these Aero bars, the chocolate ones with bubbles inside, like the kind you'd sooner find in a fizzy drink. Of course, I wasn't allowed to have fizzy drinks, either," Hermione says ruefully. "Anyway, I begged and begged for the candy for so long that my mum had to scold me. When she turned her back to get something else...I took it."

"Without touching eet?"

"Sort of," Hermione admits. "I stomped my foot and every shelf in the aisle collapsed onto the floor. All the candy I could ever want flew to me."

Failing to restrain her giggles, Fleur imagines a pint-sized Hermione, bushy hair bristling with indignation. "A lion all along, weren't you?"

Redder than her scarf, Hermione just smiles and shuts her eyes again, more readily than before. "Is that...enough?"

"Eet is plenty." There's no way to know if that was the first sign of Hermione's powers, but Fleur doubts it. The Grangers may've kept quiet. That kindles Fleur's curiosity, though. Are Mr. and Mrs. Granger as outspoken as their daughter? As brave? Fleur will ask of them another day. "You can remember ze day and what you did. Now, you must remember 'ow you _felt_. Do not theenk of ze shame of doing something wrong," she advises, approaching Hermione to lay a hand on each shoulder, "but of ze sheer wonder of ze magic eetself. You recall zat, don't you? Ze...excitement?"

Try as Fleur might to ignore it, allusions of _her_ wonder and _her_ excitement about Hermione are never far from the witch in question.

Hermione's eyes flutter below closed lids. "Yes," she breathes, reminding Fleur inexplicably of a girl waiting for a kiss. Flushing, Fleur loosens her grip and steps back. "I was so...amazed. Not _scared_ about it, really," Hermione murmurs, a smile resting on her mouth. Fleur looks higher, retreating from whatever train of thought that image produces, only to meet Hermione's gaze as she opens her eyes. That's more arresting than any spell, though, so Fleur gazes back and listens without interruption. "It was like I was Mary Poppins. Or Matilda Wormwood! You have no idea..."

Lost in thought, Hermione doesn't finish.

"I do not know zis Mademoiselle Poppins, nor Wormwood," Fleur says finally, "but theenk of your feelings and nothing else. Let zem fill you up like a fizzy drink." She clears her throat. "Zat is your next assignment, 'Ermione. Find moments in ze day to clear your mind and theenk only of what you feel. Ze magic in you bends to your will. Eet is only a matter of directing ze path, whezzer it be with ze use of your wand, or seemply yourself."

Trekking back to the castle as the sky darkens, Fleur and Hermione spy Viktor on a jog. He waves on the pass-by, pursued by a score of suitors.

"Zey do not seem to like you," Fleur observes, rebuffing the group's glares with a scowl of her own.

"Viktor asked me to the Ball again," Hermione admits, trying to sound matter-of-fact instead of pleased. "They're disappointed."

Before long, the conversation shifts to another subject without her notice. This little lark has a drawback—which is to say, Fleur's interest in learning all she can about Hermione crops up more rapidly and insistently than alihotsy trees, and at worryingly inopportune moments. It is very worrying, the interest, because it imbues Fleur with an awareness of Hermione that goes beyond memorizing quirks for the sake of understanding them. Somehow she feels as if she is hunting for an answer to a problem like she did in the Office for the Removal of Curses, Jinxes, and Hexes. In the end, the fruits of her labor were always a defeated curse, untangled and decoded for all to see, yet this awareness Fleur still cannot decipher nibbles at the edges of her thoughts and words like a pest that is not close enough to catch, making her pulse quicken and her heart hammer...

"Fleur?"

"What?"

"Don't you find it _strange_ , I said?" Hermione repeats, undeterred. She presses closer, linking their arms at the elbow as the wind bears down and roars like a dragon. Two weeks have gone by since Hermione's detention and she's still complaining about it. "Only Harry and I had to write lines."

"Not Ronald?" Fleur asks.

"No! Professor McGonagall didn't punish Ron, or Fred, or George, or anybody else because she only heard about _us_ —Harry and I."

Hearing an implication too ambiguous for her liking, Fleur sighs and steps farther into the Entrance Hall. "Just say what you mean, 'Ermione."

No sooner do they reach the queue milling in front of the Great Hall for supper does Neville Longbottom hurry over, clutching a newspaper.

Under the pressure of a distant Ginny's eyes boring into the back of his head, urging him on, he mumbles, "Have you...s-seen the _Prophet_ yet?"

"Not yet," Fleur means to say, but Hermione's already snatched the paper from Neville, ripped it open, scanned the page, and dragged Fleur away.

"Wh— _allo_?" Fleur demands, having half a mind to dig in her feet like a hippogriff if not for the sudden fear leeching strength from her body. What portent of fate has shown up in the _Daily Prophet_ now? Mulciber asking for a new wand? Travelers from their alternate timeline, begging for help?

Marching past the Grand Staircase until she faces a portrait of a man named Percival Platt, Hermione snaps, "This password is absurd!"

"Just like your wretched school," Fleur would've snarked back, if the portrait hadn't creaked and revealed another secret passageway. _Really_?

"What I mean," Hermione finally insists, pushing Fleur through the portrait's door and clambering in after her, "is someone is watching us, Fleur."

"Ze whole castle is watching us!" Fleur bursts out, stomping her foot. What in Fulcanelli's name is Hermione talking about? "Zis was ze plan!"

Thanks to the grand plan, her fears are ebbing away by the day. Nightmares—fewer and fewer still—leave her so terrified of what's come she can't speak; dreams engulf Fleur in a haze much like the reaction to an Elixir to Induce Euphoria if she thinks of all the things they can achieve together.

Their first strike at unity was a success, but not a resounding one. Shyer than they will be at the Yule Ball, the schools closed ranks again, with a few exceptions, like Fleur and Hermione joining one another for meals, sometimes accompanied by a friend or two, their chats in the corridors between classes, and the hours spent with Viktor or Roger, respectively. Fleur and Hermione don't speak of anything important in public, truly; Fleur uses this time amusing herself by voicing complaints in Hermione's ear where she can't retaliate without squandering their new camaraderie. Hermione whispers about the things she'd like to learn about, if Fleur knows of them (Fleur's taken to keeping an ever growing list). Fleur appreciates these meetings as much as their lessons, though, because they offer an illusion of confidence. Of familiarity. She pictures the obvious inquiry with ease: What does Fleur Delacour possibly have to say to Hermione Granger? Well, a coy Fleur would reply, wouldn't you like to know?

They find places to _be_ found, letting gossip spread like a pox. The courtyard is for public discussions. The covered bridge if they want to stretch their legs. The lake if they want to relax. The Shrieking Shack for subjects of upmost secrecy. Fleur begins relying on the routine, relishing in the moment of reprieve only Hermione can offer and with her, a sense of exclusive intelligibility. _You_ , these discussions say, _can speak my language_.

It's all no longer an illusion, however. They are getting as familiar as they pretend to be (or so Fleur hopes) and the occupants of the castle are watching it all. They murmur when Hermione steers Fleur away from her friends to ask a question, never once hesitating to wind her hand around Fleur's arm. They gawk when Fleur begins greeting Hermione with kisses to both cheeks, offering a custom given to none outside Beauxbatons. They try to eavesdrop when Hermione and Fleur swap books and dawdle on the staircases, thinking the other would like this text or that essay. In the interim, Fleur and Hermione watch the watchers, curious to know if their plan is working. Are the watchers entertained, they wonder, or willing to make new connections of their own? Well accustomed to scrutiny, Fleur takes these stares and whispers in stride. Hermione, apparently, less so?

With a flick of her wand, Hermione illuminates the passage. "Here."

Under Hermione's supervision and the spell's flickering radiance, Fleur finds the offending article and starts reading.

_**THE LADY'S FAVOR: A TRUE TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT?** _

_It seems there is another contest mounting on the grounds of Hogwarts_ , writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. _Canny readers will remember one Hermione Granger, fifteen, who previously captured the heart of the Boy-Who-Lived (for full details on the affair, see my published works)._

 _Sources close to the couple divulge the lovebirds spend so much time together, it's been suggested the precautions separating their dormitories in good old Gryffindor Tower are being reassessed in earnest. Unfortunately for Harry Potter, Hermione Granger has shown her true colors at last. This past month alone, Miss Granger was seen absconding to Hogsmeade to meet not only a certain Bulgarian Seeker, but another champion as well: Fleur Delacour. Miss Delacour, who has already attacked another student on Granger's behalf and gotten cozy with her in the Beauxbatons carriage, seems all too willing to fight Mr. Krum for Granger's fickle affections, whether it be within the walls of Hogwarts or during the next Triwizard Task._

_All's fair in love and war, as these foolish Muggles like to say_!

"'Gotten cozy'?" Fleur smirks. "Remind me to wear something a leetle more demure around you, 'Ermione, if Madam Skeeter is so bothered—"

"That doesn't matter!" Hermione storms farther into the passageway. Fleur follows. "I should've—she's done this before—why didn't I _remember_?"

"Remember...?" Fleur pulls her muffler higher over her ears, feeling a rush of cold air bouncing off the walls.

"She's an Animagus," Hermione snarls. "Skeeter. That's how she gets information out of people!"

Emerging from the passageway at and into a glass boathouse on another stretch of the lake, Fleur ponders upon Rita Skeeter. Their interview had been brief and unremarkable, giving Fleur the impression that Skeeter was barely listening to her speak at all—and why would she, when Harry Potter himself sat so near and so nervously on the other side of the room? Articles penned during the Tournament didn't overmuch concern Fleur either, aside from the appalling news about Rubeus Hagrid's parentage and the amusing tall tale (?) of Harry, Hermione, and Viktor's entanglement.

"Zat is 'ow she found us in 'Ogsmeade?"

"Yes." Hermione looks even angrier than she did in the Shrieking Shack. "And she's not registered with the Ministry, so she's never noticed."

"And 'ow did _you_ find out?"

Hermione swells like a bullfrog. "I caught her," she hisses. "In a jar, as a beetle. And I bloody well mean to do it again!"

"Ah," Fleur tries, feeling a tad alarmed now, "do you not theenk zis is an...unjust...overreaction?" Hermione's mouth drops open, forcing Fleur to hurry up and explain, if only to propel reason back into the proceedings. And, of course, to save Hermione from a cardiac episode. "We 'ave our own columnists in France such as, ah, Bertrand Launier, and with 'is work, one knows to seemply to feed ze words to your crups and bundimuns—"

"Fleur, I don't care about Bertrand Launier, I care about Rita Skeeter. Did you know, because of her, nobody believed Harry?"

Nausea worms its way into Fleur's belly as if it never left, souring any earlier cheer or indignation in an instant.

"Explain."

"Skeeter's articles laid the foundation for Fudge and Umbridge." Hermione bypasses old netting and stained buoys in a walk so furious that Fleur must step hastily out of the way. "By the Third Task, Harry's reputation was ruined. The whole wizarding world thought Harry was going mad or becoming a Dark wizard himself or spouting lies for attention, as I'm sure you remember," she fumes, hands curling into fists. "That's all thanks to Skeeter. If she hadn't been eavesdropping on us, on Hagrid, on anyone, Harry's story coming out of the maze would've been taken seriously."

Fleur swallows, trying not to think of Cedric's still body on the grass, Harry's weeping, or Cho's quiet gasp of horror. "Cedric's death would not be called an accident, zen," she suggests faintly, following one consequence its logical conclusion. It is all so very logical now, if not another risk...

"Exactly."

"I saw a beetle, zat day," Fleur recalls, latching on to something inconsequential, just for a minute, to breathe. "Near Viktor."

"She's always lurking. In the fountain at the Yule Ball, at the docks during the Second Task...she even flew to Harry's classroom! Anything to get the scoop. Well, that won't be happening again," she growls, so angry that Fleur is grateful for boathouse's privacy, "because we're going to stop her."

"We are?"

This isn't about Skeeter, truly, but a question of...ethics. Ethics, yes. Is it right to lay bait for the beetle if said beetle hasn't done any harm...yet? But, she allows, they're after Crouch for the same reason! His conspiracy would still exist and whirl inexorably on until You-Know-Who rose again.

Is it unjust to be so logical? So cold-blooded? They aren't living in the same world anymore, despite a near identical set dressing.

"I need your help, Fleur. Please." Hermione is bitter now, sullen, and the worst part is that she _isn't_ having a go of Fleur. Saving Harry and Ron pushes Hermione to a level of desperation Fleur would only see in herself for Gaby, so who is she to argue? Fleur's already crossed a rather significant line jumping through time and space to right a wrong. "If we let her run amok like before, this will _all_ be for nothing. _Trust_ me."

Therein lay another stumbling block: Hermione Granger, who is anything but cold, who struggled to stay iron-hearted in all her planning and plotting, only to burst into the tears at the mere thought of Harry, her best friend, shouldering even more pain and fear...Fleur saw it...

Was Rita Skeeter the Exploding Snap card that would topple the rest of the house? Fleur isn't entirely sure, and so tries one last appeal.

"If we embark on zis road, 'Ermione, you must be certain. Zis is not some jaunt into 'Ogsmeade, or a leetle plan we 'ave been brewing in a dark corner." Fleur stares Hermione down, adding this glimpse of ferocity to the tin of tidbits that she has been collecting of Hermione for almost a month. Hermione Granger has her finer qualities—loyalty for one—but this is the third hint Fleur's seen of bleaker impulses, of pure ruthlessness. It may be first step of many to hell on a route initially holding good intentions. "Are you certain you want to do zis? Is eet for...ze right reasons?"

Silhouetted in the light of the sunset, Hermione hesitates.

"Check," Fleur orders.

While Harry and Ron despaired over Fleur and Hermione's mutual dislike of Quidditch and wizard's chess, the borrowed board condition became a means of getting acquainted, albeit in a brusquer way than any friendship of Fleur's has ever begun. _Check_ compelled you to answer any inquiry.

A part of Fleur still objects to the idea, but the larger counterpart is...well, _fascinated_. Can Fleur judge Hermione so fast when Hermione's thrown herself into danger for her best friends over and over again? Is it so astonishing because it's just one of many for a friend of the Boy-Who-Lived, a grim but crucial step into saving his life? Or is the plan so shocking, Fleur muses, because she, the supposed spy, didn't come up with it first?

 _No one regards what is before his feet when searching out the regions of the sky_ , Edgar whispers in Fleur's memory, feverishly revising for his practicum. Shouldn't she do the same? Shouldn't Fleur attend to the placement of her feet in the present, where it may count as much as their bid at international magical cooperation in the future? Troubling herself again with more questions than answers, Fleur lets them all go, waiting.

"Believe me, I'm sure. If it makes you feel any better, I'm not going to hurt her." Hermione pauses, looking mulish. "I'm just going to _threaten_ her."

"Blackmail," Fleur corrects delicately, trying to hide her interest. To think...Harry's story not being mocked...Fleur publicly corroborating the tale with Cedric if he is willing...it sounds too good to be true, but stranger things have happened. "And...'ow do you intend...?" She lets the sentence drop in a sudden flare of excitement, realizing Hermione's newest plan bolsters the other—getting to Little Hangleton to witness the resurrection.

Is that a thrill creeping down Fleur's spine just now, marveling at such a show of synergy, or foreboding?

Fleur is not sure she would like to know.

"Let's figure that out together, shall we?" Hermione asks, beckoning. As always, Fleur follows.

* * *

On Friday, Fleur finds herself again in Hogsmeade, scouring the shops for inspiration.

Three weeks (or almost two years) ago, Fleur finished her Christmas shopping. Now, stuck in a bygone time, Fleur has another recipient...and no idea where to begin. What to get Hermione Granger, who grows only more complicated during the time spent together? Only more intriguing?

All in the interests of staying present, of course. How else to reconcile buying a gift for her new—and rather admirably ruthless—friend?

At Dervish and Banges, she examines Hex-a-Gones, Remembralls, scrying mirrors, and an Eye of Horus, but none of them match what Fleur's gathered of Hermione's inclinations. She lingers in Dogweed and Deathcap and Maestro's Music Shop, her efforts fruitless. Gladrags offers a nice pair of gloves, but Fleur can't bring herself to buy them. They don't match the elusive feeling she divines of Hermione, so she moves on. In Honeydukes, Fleur ponders the shelves. Had Hermione enjoyed the Ice Mice or the Wizochoc more? J. Pippin's, Ceridwen's, Scrivenshaft's, and Spintwitches are scoured to no avail. Fleur ends her afternoon at Tomes and Scrolls, weighing one book and another, frustrated, finding nothing.

Books would be welcome, but _which_ book? Fleur sets down _How to Woo Witches_...after a quick scan. Definitely not.

She glances at the clock, starts, abandons the books, and dashes back onto High Street, anticipation hastening her steps. She can't be late.

Ducking into the alley beside a cauldron shop, Fleur casts a Disillusionment Charm on herself and moves until her back hits a wall made of bricks. After a few minutes of waiting, Hermione joins her, alone and nervous. "Fleur?" She whispers, moving to face the street and its oblivious shoppers.

"Right 'ere." Fleur knocks three times along the wall in their agreed-upon code. Hermione's shoulders relax.

Soon enough, Rita Skeeter appears in ostentatious yellow robes, the letter sent off at breakfast grasped in her hand. "Miss Granger," she exclaims. "Should I be surprised you called yourself 'a friend'?" She consults the page, curls bobbing. "A friend with 'secrets worth Galleons and Galleons'?"

"You should," says Hermione. Fleur watches closely, getting ready... "You're no friend of mine."

Skeeter advances, smiling. "Then why am I here, if not to hear more about you and young Harry? My editor is waiting with bated breath."

" _I'm_ surprised someone as pigheaded as you knows Shakespeare."

A blotch of red glows on Skeeter's face. Her smile tightens as she steps cluelessly forward again.

"Pigheaded?" Skeeter's Quick-Quotes-Quill appears between her fingers now. "Is that how you describe...hmm, Mr. Krum? For a bit of drama?"

Unseen, Fleur raises her wand. Time to spring the trap. _Accio_! In a flash, the quill flies into Hermione's hand.

"What—?" Rita Skeeter is furious. "Give that back to me, you stupid girl!"

"Afraid I can't," Hermione replies breezily, keeping her cool. "You're not going to need it."

"You thieving—!"

 _Accio_! Rita's wand soars out of her bag and zooms to Hermione, who catches it. Disarmed, Skeeter goes ashen.

"I'll scream," she manages. Fleur hopes she is frightened. For all intents and purposes, Hermione did magic without moving or speaking.

"If you do," Hermione warns, "I'll tell everyone in the village that you're an unregistered Animagus."

Skeeter glances frantically over her shoulder to the street, not bothering to deny it. Coercion is sapping her courage to the quick. "How did you—?"

"It doesn't matter. What I want you to know," Hermione says, "is that if you continue to write about Harry and I, the Ministry of Magic will get an owl from me and my friends about you breaking the law." She tosses the wand back at Skeeter. "I wouldn't try anything, by the way. If I don't turn up in the Three Broomsticks with my memories intact in...oh, about two minutes, my friends will send that owl on my behalf. We have a system, you see. There's an owl coming from Gryffindor Tower, another flying from the Owlery, _another_ from the grounds...oh, do you get it now? I needn't go on?"

Reddening with rage, Skeeter's mouth clamps shut. Chin quivering, she stows her wand back in her robes. Hermione returns the quill.

"Let's see if you can stop writing about others for a year." Hermione pretends to consider the leverage. "Break before, and it's Azkaban for you."

"What am I supposed to—?"

"You're a smart woman. Unscrupulous and cowardly and cruel, maybe, but smart. You'll figure it out." Hermione smiles broadly.

Needless to say, Skeeter is aghast over the loss of her livelihood, and Fleur? Fleur is _captivated_.

"I'll get you for this, Granger. In a year, you'll be begging me for a reprieve." Infuriated by Hermione's mocking yawn, Skeeter storms off.

After a minute, Fleur removes the Disillusionment Charm. "Well done, 'Ermione," she declares, beaming. "You were mesmerizing!"

Hermione goes pink.

With a certain awareness hovering in the periphery like a ghost, Fleur cheerfully joins Hermione in lambasting Skeeter for the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

Quicker than she expected, the end of the term stirs Hogwarts into a frenzy.

Perhaps it is Fleur's imagination, but the rumors flying about the halls seem more outlandish than last time. Not only does the tale of the Weird Sisters excite the student body again, but Fleur hears a breathless invention of Spellbound and Celestina Warbeck coming to join them. Edgar gets wind of a Honeydukes buffet and a fountain of Chocolate Frogs. Giselle and Hugo start inventing rumors themselves, like the Quiberon Quafflepunchers, the Ministers of Magic (Dumont, Fudge, Obansk, and Stefansson), and Barry Winkle attending to meet the champions. In the bedlam, Manon dares to organize an underground lottery with George. Most exciting of all is Henry and Charles and their plans for an afterparty.

"Don't mind us," Henry confides after Fleur confronts him in Arithmancy, "but we borrowed the idea from you and Hermione!"

A prefect in one life and a scofflaw in the other, Hermione is determinedly neutral on the subject, at least until Fleur has her say.

"Let eet 'appen," she advises under her breath, studying for a Transfiguration exam she can pass in her sleep. "Zey are inviting anyone."

Hermione cottons on, eyes lighting up. "Without our pushing and prodding..."

It's one thing to ham-fistedly push the schools together, and yet another to see the hints of attraction sparking without help. Fleur is pleased. Teenagers are the same wherever you found them. They like meeting new people, showing off, and having fun. First the assembly in Hogsmeade, then the Yule Ball, then its imminent afterparty...she isn't sure she wants to know what happens next, beyond their meddling. Let it be a surprise.

"Indeed."

Fleur's glad to instill Hermione with _some_ peace of mind. While Hermione now spends a great deal of her time with Fleur, she doles out almost as much for Viktor, which lead an argument with Ron. Like the rest of his peers, Ron could eventually not fail to notice Viktor so frequently (and openly, this time) in Hermione's company and assumed he was after any knowledge she may have on the clue within the golden egg or Harry himself. Thanks to a screaming match in the courtyard, the details of which were spread gleefully throughout the castle by Peeves, the story was known to most by the end of the day. Now Harry was splitting his time in half to see both of his best friends, Hermione was dining exclusively among Beauxbatons and Ravenclaw students, and Ron was going out of his way to avoid Fleur, perhaps fearing a retribution as bad as Draco Malfoy's (in fact, her wrath had been stalled only by Hermione's pleas, forcing Fleur to settle for following Ron with her eyes and letting his imagination do the rest). But the argument concerned Hermione for different reason; much to Fleur's shock, she learned that the fight had come early. It was not due to happen until Christmas Eve. Fleur tries not to dwell _too_ long on the matter, preferring to push all of her stress to the doom-like June that occupies her nightmares. Some behaviors _are_ predictable, even destined, Ron's immaturity aside. Others, like the afterparty, are curios, meant to be celebrated, for they would not exist without deliberate interference...so she will do just that. Celebrate, make merry, and so on.

"Fleur?"

They look up. Roger Davies stands before their table, rocking back on his heels and brimming with confidence. His appearance is no surprise, but his sureness is unfamiliar. She's watched him struggle to pluck up the courage to ask her out for weeks, only to lose steam and change the subject.

"Roger," she greets, setting the notes aside. "What can I do for you?"

"I—"

Never fond of interruptions, whatever face Hermione is presumably making behind Fleur's back while Roger is talking must not be helping much.

"—want to speak to you privately," Hermione recites under her breath, irritably collecting her things. "Find me later, Fleur, won't you?"

Before Fleur can even breathe a parting syllable, Hermione has strode off without a backwards glance.

Roger sits down in Hermione's abandoned seat, again bearing no trace of the nerves that belied his first invitation to the Ball, all that time ago. She had asked around of him in her last stay at Hogwarts, only for Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecombe to sigh in real admiration and give their stamps of approval. Roger had been a stammering mess before, so Fleur wonders what has changed. Did her more recent teasing words reach his ears?

It's appealing and rare to find immunity to the thrall, although...wasn't Roger engulfed, originally? He didn't eat and barely listened to Fleur speak...

"You must've gotten a lot of invitations," Roger muses, "but I thought I'd try, despite the rumors. Would you like to go to the Yule Ball with me?"

"Y—ze rumors?" Fleur asks, changing her answer mid-word.

"Well...with the _Prophet_...I thought you and Granger...or you and a Weasley? Cedric said you had a date, but your friend Edgar said you didn't—"

Thinking of Skeeter's rage, Fleur waves these implications away, eager to put such troubling thoughts to bed—ah, to rest, Fleur corrects herself, hastily. "Your papers 'ave no integrity, Roger. 'Ermione is...a dear friend, zat is all." She smiles at him. "I would love to attend ze Ball with you."

He grins, producing a flower from inside his robes.

"Here. This made me think of you during my Herbology class yesterday..."

Fleur accepts the orchid, a bit disappointed. Boys and girls have been giving her flowers since she was a child and calling themselves clever for it, so she expected more from a Ravenclaw. Even Cerberus teased Fleur about that, later pointedly bestowing her with a honking daffodil and an atrocious limerick to accompany it before he asked her out, claiming to be different. She had only laughed, enamored, and wrote back, agreeing...

"...at eight o'clock," Roger seems to be clarifying, drawing Fleur from her reverie. She blanches. Was he talking all along?

Thoughts nowhere as clear or understood as the stack of notes on her desk, Fleur watches him go.

* * *

Thanks to the feast waiting for them at the Yule Ball, the traditional _réveillon_ supper is held on the night of the twenty-third in the Beauxbatons carriage. They prepare the dishes themselves after a delivery of supplies from Hogsmeade, serving each other food from all corners of France. There is roast game and foie gras, pike and trout and smoked salmon, a variety of cheeses, seven meatless dishes, and of course, the thirteen desserts. Wine from Céline's family vineyard is sternly apportioned, though not without grandstanding from the aspiring actress herself. Later, Madame Maxime directs a midnight mass. Fleur and her friends sing themselves hoarse into the dawn, belting out their favorite carols. In the morning, everyone slips about the corridors on socked feet, having left their shoes in front of the fireplace for the night, where Bezants and Galleons are found in the soles, mixed amusingly with papillotes. In the hours before the Yule Ball, their merry band goes ice skating on a transfigured piece of a Hogwarts lawn, waving to the score of Gryffindors embroiled in another snowball fight. Happy yet homesick for the first time since the disaster in the Department of Mysteries, Fleur excuses herself from the others on Christmas Eve and calls home from Maxime's office.

"Fleur!" Gabrielle exclaims, darting headlong for the fireplace. "You're here!"

"And there," she jokes, making her father chuckle. He's in his finest dress robes, waiting to Apparate to Christmas dinner.

"Shouldn't you be getting ready, darling?" Louis asks, making room for Apolline as she spies Fleur and beams. "The festivities are about to begin!"

"I am. I will. I just missed all of you," Fleur admits, thinking wistfully of the visit she postponed after Snape's Patronus flew into her office.

"Don't worry, we'll be seeing you sooner than—" Louis chuckles after Apolline reprovingly nudges his side.

"Olympe swore us to secrecy, my love, don't you remember?"

"Not me," Gabrielle whispers to Fleur at the hearth, features rife with mischief in the flickers of green firelight. "I'll spoil it if you ask me...!"

Fleur feigns ignorance. "Oh? Papa, Gaby, is there something you would like to share?"

"Yes!"

"Hush, Gabrielle. Why aren't you dressed yet? Your grandmother..." With a fuss, her mother and sister wander off, arguing all the way.

"Simply this, on behalf of each of us," her father declares, blowing a kiss in farewell, "enjoy your holidays."

Cheered, Fleur retreats to her dormitory, where Céline is already dressed and hunting through her possessions for accessories. Seizing the opportunity to feel like she used to, unburdened and oblivious, Fleur dons her dress robes, smiling at the way the silvery satin sparkles in candlelight, before sitting at her vanity. Across the room, Céline meets Fleur's eyes in the mirror and holds two pairs of earrings up for her opinion.

"Emeralds." Nodding, Céline dons them carefully as Fleur puzzles over her own, debating over the pearls or the ones from her grandmother—

 _That's it_!

She adorns the pearls and the dragonfly diadem, conjures a box for the veela pair, shrinks it to the size of a Galleon, and stuffs it in her pocket.

When everyone in the carriage has been deemed appropriately dressed for the occasion and Manon's jar of Whizzing Worms has been confiscated in aggravation by Madame Maxime, they traipse up to the castle, again led by the elephantine strides of their headmistress and Hagrid. Roger finds Fleur in the Entrance Hall, smelling pleasantly of peppermint. That is another change, albeit an enjoyable one, so Fleur isn't going to complain.

The doors open, admitting Professor Karkaroff, Hermione, Viktor, and his classmates, one of which, to Fleur's surprise, joins Emma as her date.

Emma catches her looking. "He's been admiring my charmwork since All Saints' Day," she admits in French, blushing slightly. "He wouldn't have been brave enough to ask me without your"—she makes a half-hearted gesture as if batting away her own earlier rudeness—"party in the village."

"Shall I say 'you're welcome' now or later?" Fleur asks, trying not to wince. Below her robes, the Time-Turner is warming again.

Emma smiles wryly. "Later, as long he as is gentlemanly...but I don't need to worry."

"Why not?"

"He knows how skilled I am with a wand!"

Laughing, Fleur steps back to Roger's side and returns Hermione's wave, who has caught Harry and Parvati's attention. Both are staring, offering a distraction as Fleur takes note of Hermione herself. Even she looked twice on the night of the first Yule Ball at the beauty of the girl on Viktor's arm. Upon closer inspection, Fleur was clued into her identity. That girl, she remembers thinking, the one who went everywhere with Harry Potter...

"You look beautiful, 'Ermione," Fleur teases in a voice so low that a passing McGonagall doesn't hear, "is zere something different with your 'air?"

"Very funny," Hermione retorts, sounding pleased all the same. Viktor glances between them, unsure whether he ought to comment or not, but there is no chance. The oak doors open and allow the champions to file in, accompanied by their dates. At the front, Roger matches Fleur stride for stride. She's been looking forward to testing his skill a second time. At the first Ball, Fleur and Roger glided across the floor as elegantly as the nymphs of Beauxbatons in their pantomimes of _Swan Lake_. At the table, Fleur and Hermione make a hurried change of seating arrangements, this time sitting together. On a whim, Fleur orders something different off the menu to reshape the past further. Hermione orders the pork chops.

"Going to comment on our decorations?" Hermione asks out of the corner of her mouth, lips twitching. "Like our 'ugly armor in ze 'alls'?"

"Zey are seemply not as artistic as ze like of Beauxbatons," Fleur strikes back, letting her voice carry. "Wouldn't you agree, Madame Maxime?"

"Fleur," Madame Maxime chides, although a glimmer of amusement is apparent in her eyes. "You are a guest 'ere..."

"Forgive me, Professor Dumbledore," Fleur says. "But eet is difficult to compliment ze mutton when you 'ave been living off ze filet de bœuf, no?"

"I understand completely, Mademoiselle Delacour," Professor Dumbledore replies, eyes twinkling. "While I myself am fond of Hogwarts, I confess, when I first laid eyes on the Uagadou edifice, it took my breath away." Madame Maxime makes a noise of approval from behind her glass of wine.

"Dumbly-dorr, is eet not magic at eets finest?"

This diversion keeps Percy Weasley from yammering about Mr. Crouch, to Fleur's relief. As she listens, the Time-Turner returns, jarring and cold.

"Have you been to each of the wizarding schools, Professor?" Cho asks.

"Does Koldovstoretz really play Quidditch on uprooted trees, sir?" Cedric questions eagerly.

Fleur isn't surprised to hear affirmatives from Dumbledore, who has done it all. As Percy interjects his opinion on the matter, she leans sideways.

"Check," she whispers in Hermione's ear, who just smirks, accepting the challenge. She straightens up, searching for an opening.

"...Castelobruxo ought to be a little more recriminating, don't you think?" Percy is saying, not seeing Harry's boredom. Parvati seems to take pity and strikes up a conversation about Quidditch, which Cedric and Cho strain to hear. "My brother's ears shriveled up thanks to that boy's dirty trick!"

Having heard this tale firsthand from Bill, who found the whole thing funny, Fleur's attention drifts as she accepts a sweet from Roger's plate.

"Our friends at Mahoutokoro ought to be _less_ admonitory." Karkaroff shakes his head. "Students are expelled if they betray that silly code of theirs!"

Unfortunately for Fleur and their mock game of wizard's chess, Hermione's entry into the debate oozes with nobility.

"The Japanese wizard's code is not unlike ours, Professor Karkaroff," Hermione ventures, drawing many eyes now, Fleur's included. "Those students are expelled if they use Dark magic, which warrants the same consequences here at Hogwarts. Personally," she adds, with something of an edge to her voice, "while I've heard wonderful things about Durmstrang from Viktor, I think your own school should take a leaf from Mahoutokoro's book."

Karkaroff's disbelieving smile does not reach his eyes. "Do tell, Miss...Granger, was it? Forgive me, I don't recall seeing your surname...anywhere."

On Hermione's other side, Krum shifts in his seat, frowning at Karkaroff, no doubt hearing the same implication that Fleur does.

Just as Fleur is considering another Confundus Charm, Professor Dumbledore stands and sends the champions to the dance floor.

"Checkmate," Hermione whispers in passing, features glowing with triumph and entirely unruffled by Karkaroff. Outmaneuvered, Fleur is silent.

The first tune of the Weird Sisters starts slow, allowing Fleur and Roger to gain their bearings. Hermione whirls by with Viktor, Cho and Cedric more sedately. Harry and Parvati revolve in a small circle. Soon, the floor is flooded with new pairs, letting the champions mingle as the music shifts to something faster. Cedric and Fleur swap between Roger and Cho and back, until Edgar and Céline appear to steal Fleur and Roger away for a gavotte that goes disastrously off-beat. Viktor and Hermione are suddenly available to learn, so Fleur pulls them in too, with Edgar shouting instructions and Céline miming the steps. Fleur cannot say how long they have been dancing, but measures the time in the changes in song, in dress, in partners and passes, noting repeats of old behaviors—Harry and Ron at a table, the Patil twins dancing with Charles and Henry, Fred and Angelina's dangerous dance moves, Ludo Bagman's waltz with Professor McGonagall, Madame Maxime's spin with Professor Dumbledore—and new ones, too, like Jakob sitting with Emma and making her smile, Ragna whispering a joke to Giselle and Hugo, and Sacha spiking the punch bowl.

While Roger and Viktor bustle off for drinks, Fleur watches Hermione approach Harry and Ron. Trying to listen, Fleur makes a slow circuit of the tables, greeting friends and classmates as she passes. The result involves less shouting, but Hermione storms off anyway, leaving Harry and a tetchy Ron alone. With a sigh, Fleur follows Hermione to find that she has not gone far, only to an unoccupied corner of the Entrance Hall.

"He's still a prat! I can't believe it!"

"You expected more?"

Fleur has a suspicion that Hermione hoped cooler heads would prevail, but tonight, such is not so. "I expected better," Hermione mutters, submitting to the brief hug that Fleur bestows upon her as she tries to find the right comforting words. From what Fleur has seen of Harry, Hermione, and Ron, grudges ran deep and tempers ran high. It was galling or brave to try rewriting history, though it is no surprise that Hermione made an effort. That is the intent between them, after all. "But he's still got the emotional range of a teaspoon! It's like I'm watching a rerun—"

"Ronald is still young," Fleur says, trying to be gentle with both camps. "'E 'as no idea what you 'ave seen and done."

"Well..." Hermione sniffs.

"I am sorry, 'Ermione. Zis was inevitable. You cannot expect ze weeks 'ere to 'ave altered everything. Ronald will change when 'e is ready."

Nodding wearily, Hermione is at a rare loss. Intending to ramble on and fill the silence until necessary, Fleur's interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Are you vell, Herm-own-ninny?"

Viktor and Roger stand nearby, drinks in hand.

"She was just feeling a leetle faint," Fleur lies, stepping partially in the way so Hermione can wipe her eyes without notice. "Too much dancing."

"Vould you like to sit down and talk?" Viktor asks.

Roger asks Fleur under his breath if she'd like to walk with him in the gardens. She agrees, promising to see Hermione later, and takes Roger's arm.

In the courtyard, Professor Snape is ousting couples from steaming carriages, so they hurry hastily by, unwilling to court his wrath.

"You and Granger seem close," Roger observes after a silence.

"She 'as been very welcoming." With her eyes fixed on the fairies in the bushes, Fleur amuses herself with the idea. Hermione, welcoming?

Among the roses and standing before the sparkling fountain, Roger's smile gets shy. "You know, I couldn't take my eyes off you."

"I did know," she whispers back, thinking better of teasing him for his numerous failures of late to ask her to the Ball. Tonight, Roger is...Sir Luckless at the end of Beedle's tale. They even have a fountain to commemorate the evening a second time, its only magic being the wonders of a ceremonious first date. It is so very easy for Fleur to be around a boy like Roger Davies, though the appeal has been tempered. She knows exactly what to expect from him and that is...that is the problem and the whole story, back to front. Hermione's words ring in her ears now. _It's still strange to me, sometimes_ , she had said as both of them watched Viktor depart for the ship, _like you and I are reading lines and everyone else is a half step behind us._ Fleur closes her eyes as Roger leans down to kiss her, no longer so keen to stay outside in the cold with him until the midnight curfew.

Ceremonious, maybe, Fleur decides, drawing back for breath, but also...disappointing? Boring. She blinks, bewildered. Yes...she was _bored_! Her night is proceeding almost the same as before, yet she—she has _no_ interest in anything but its end. In the middle of another kiss, Roger hiccups.

"Roger?"

He recoils, covering his mouth with a fist. Another hiccup escapes, then a laugh. Then, more astonishingly, a yawn.

"Are you well?" Fleur asks, alarmed.

"I..." A sweat breaks out on his brow. "I was so nervous about—about tonight that I..." He coughs, stifling another ill-timed laugh. "I took a potion."

"What potion?" Fleur presses, spotting the forms of her headmistress and the gamekeeper on the other side of the fountain, talking quietly.

Sweating profusely now, Roger follows her line of vision and gulps. "Erm, the first—"

"Ze first?" Fleur demands in a whisper. "You took more zan one?"

"I wanted tonight to go well!" Roger mops his brow. "The first was the, you know, Invigoration Draught..." For his presumption and preparedness, Fleur rolls her eyes and gestures for him to continue. "And the other, erm...your friend suggested it. Edgar. He said I should ask to you to the Ball without—without stammering, or something to that effect, so I-I made a Draught of Peace to calm myself down...I've been taking it for a week..."

"And mixing potions with contrasting natures," Fleur admonishes, seizing him by the arm and towing him away. "What were you theenking?"

"I just—wanted the night to be special," Roger mumbles as they stagger into the hall and totter for the staircase. "I didn't want to disappoint—"

"Ze only zing zat disappoints me is your unconcern, Roger! Your Draught of Peace could've been too heavy-handed," she snaps back in disgust. "Will zis 'ave been worth ze trouble if you fall into an irreversible sleep?" She tugs him harder onto the landing. "As if I would care about—about—"

The other Roger Davies had been admiring and enthusiastic, maybe a little embarrassed by his reaction to the thrall, but Fleur hadn't minded a whit. He was one of the harmless Hogwarts boys, and after their fling, they parted on good terms. _This_ Roger is...duplicitous. Thinking hard, Fleur struggles to get him up another step. Perhaps she ought to forget about their imagined web and its lure of a better future. Nothing is ever so easy or so simple as it seems, and as a Curse-Breaker, she should've known better. The flies in the web aren't stupid. They all reacted to Fleur and Hermione in different ways, countering actions and plans and words as they saw fit. This journey backwards feels closer to a shattered vase than time waves or that Muggle moth theory, Fleur judges, glancing sidelong at the consequences of one teasing comment and Edgar's well-meant advice. Every advance scatters another part of the vase, creating new paths from its branching cracks and complicating the route ahead. There is no telling how the pieces will land, or if they can be repaired at all, or if they will hurt someone on the way down, like herself, or Hermione, or Harry...

Gazing at Roger's blotchy, miserable face, Fleur can no longer remember what drew her eye to him in the first place.

"Of course you would care! Your—your _thrall_ only affects the most willing, the most qualified! Trust me, I know, I've read all about it!"

"Do _not_ speak of what you do not understand, you careless, _idiotic_ boy!"

"Come off of it!" Roger protests, panting. "Of all people, you picked me! You could have anybody you wanted! I didn't want to ruin my chance!"

"Your...chance...to... _what_?" Fleur asks in a hiss, despite knowing perfectly well what he means. Quailing in fear, he is silent.

"What is the meaning of this, Miss Delacour?"

Madam Pomfrey has bustled out of her office, drawn to the new noise in the Hospital Wing. Fleur shoves a punch-drunk Roger at her. He stumbles.

Pomfrey catches Roger by the elbow and eases him into a chair, looking scandalized.

"Zis foolish boy has mixed a Draught of Peace and an Invigoration Draught," she snarls, by now halfway to the door. "You will excuse me."

With Pomfrey's lecture already off to a flying start and growing in pitch, Fleur takes her leave.

* * *

When Fleur finally returns to the Great Hall, having walked the length of the ground floor twice to abate her anger, the Yule Ball is almost over. The Weird Sisters are finishing a set of torch songs, lamenting their ill luck in love. Couples sway contentedly together on the dance floor, whispering.

Hardly able stand the sight of them, she sits down beside Céline.

"Fleur?" Céline asks, glancing her way as best she can without taking her eyes from Myron Wagtail. "What's the matter?"

"This isn't what I expected it to be," Fleur admits for lack of a better answer, hating, besides the latter part of her evening, how much easier it is to lie to Céline now. She lies so quickly that these evasions are out of her mouth before they register as wise, or right, and to Fleur's eternal shame, her best friend believes them all. But...how else to explain— _everything_? How and where to begin a story that is unfolding as fancifully as Beedle's _The Fountain of Fair Fortune_? With the Time-Turner, Fleur would say, increasingly desperate, but then she would _have_ to go into detail, because, no, of course she can't leave out Harry Potter, or his false vision, or You-Know-Who, or Sirius Black, or Cedric Diggory dying in the first place—

No, Fleur has to settle for sharing the abridged version. "Roger was not who I...thought," she says after a beat.

"Come with us," Céline consoles, wresting her gaze from her favorite singer. "We got greenhouse five for the afterparty."

"Thank you, but I think I will be turning in." In vain, Fleur tries to recall the earlier cheer. "I should be working on the golden egg..."

"You work too hard," Céline points out with affection, pushing the plate of truffles at Fleur. "Take a break. Eat something. Be merry!"

Fleur's reply is drowned out by Hermione, for which she is grateful.

"All right?" Hermione asks, out of breath. Céline smiles politely at the interruption, and a bit wider as Viktor shows up.

"Vill you dance vith me again, Herm-own-ninny?"

"I need to rest my feet," Hermione groans. "Do you lot dance like this at your schools all the time?"

They nod and murmur assent. The Weird Sisters, meanwhile, round up for their last number with a melody so fast that the tables seem to jump.

"Oh, I love this song," Céline sighs, looking around hopefully for Edgar. Ever the gentleman, Viktor offers his arm.

"You do not mind?" He asks Hermione, heedful of Céline, who looks as if she'll combust like a Filibuster firework if she doesn't dance soon.

"Go ahead, I'll stay with Fleur," Hermione says. They do. Finding the truffles not to her liking, Fleur pushes the plate away.

"Viktor is lucky zat eet is almost midnight. Zat girl can dance all night."

Hermione rests her chin on her hand, eyes probing. "Are you okay? You seem..."

"Zis was not ze Chreestmas I was expecting." Fleur tries not to look so sour. "Did you know ze people in our leetle web 'ave wills of zeir own?"

"They do." Hermione is sympathetic and watchful and not at all hesitant to inch her chair closer to Fleur's so they may talk with some semblance of privacy in such a crowded hall. Fleur's stomach uncoils, buckling eagerly to the intimacy of Hermione's knowing and Hermione's understanding of what she may be thinking, as opposed to Ron and Harry and Viktor and the degrees of nearness she will allow them, at least until they are caught up to their own time. Somehow it is Fleur that will get a better view of her secrets, a keener vantage point of her worries, and a front row seat to her fears and hopes. "Can I help you in some way?" Hermione asks. She eyes the plate of truffles for a second, eyes brightening. "Come with me."

"What?"

Hermione offers her hand. For a long and thrilling moment, Fleur almost expects them to head onto the dance floor themselves, but she is instead brought elsewhere, first into the Entrance Hall for the umpteenth time in many hours, and then past the staircase, to a door on the left side. The corridor, brightly lit with torches and decorated with paintings of food, baffles Fleur. Fingers still intwined with Fleur's, Hermione reaches with her free hand and— _tickles_ one? Just as Fleur is about to laugh, incredulous, the pear shivers, chuckling, and lifts out of its frame to become a handle.

"Your 'Ogwarts is—"

"Mad, I know," Hermione says cheerfully, and pulls the handle so they may enter yet another of the castle's secret passageways. Only after Fleur has clambered through and righted herself on her feet does she see they are not in a passageway at all but the cavernous Hogwarts kitchens where a cadre of squeaky-voiced house elves run to greet them. Hermione bends to greet the nearest one, smiling. "Hello, Dobby. It's good to see you."

"Dobby is pleased to see Hermione Granger, miss!" As Fleur puzzles over how they met, he asks, "How may we be of service to you and...?"

"Mademoiselle Delacour!" Another elf squeaks, giving a deferential bow. She inclines her head in reply.

"Actually, I've forgotten to give Fleur here a Christmas present..." Swatting away Fleur's indiscreet attempt to waylay her, Hermione smiles again. "And I know it's short notice—I see you've been working hard all evening at our meals for the Ball—on that note, the pork chops were delicious—"

There is a chorus of appreciation.

"I suppose I wondered if you could...erm, whip something up for Fleur? A little taste of home? Within reason, obviously..."

Unbidden, Fleur lets out a breath. That awareness gnaws at her mind again, just out of reach, shrouded like a test answer she cannot remember.

"Certainly, miss!"

"It would be Dobby's pleasure!"

Over a hundred pairs of eyes move to Fleur, who cannot think of a single thing she'd like to eat. _Anything but heavy Hogwarts food, hurry_!

"Niniche," she blurts out at last. "Niniche bourdeaux. Not ze one from Quiberon. Eet is a chocolate fondant, but with a...a caramel—"

More squeaks. At least one house-elf knows how to prepare it. The group scurries away to assist. Hermione glances at Fleur, smiling sheepishly.

"Forgive me, I really did forget. Who knew traveling through time would put a whole holiday out of your mind?"

Fleur retrieves the box from her pocket, returns it to its proper size, and presses it into Hermione's palm. " _I_ did not, but you 'ave my forgiveness."

They find seats by one of the dozen fireplaces, keeping out of the way of the goings-on. Hermione pulls the earrings out of the box, eyes wide.

"Zey are veela blessed," Fleur explains. "You will catch whatever is said after your name in a perimeter of...zis castle, per'aps. I supposed zey would be 'elpful during all of zese...adventures with 'Arry and Ronald, but beware," she warns, wagging a finger, "you won't always like what you 'ear."

"Fleur..." To Fleur's horror, Hermione's eyes well up. "I don't know how to..." She sucks in a deep breath, composing herself. " _Thank you_."

"Eet was my pleasure," Fleur soothes. "Let zem be put to use. My grandmuzzer did not consider zat I 'ear enough about myself without zem—"

"Oh no, I can't!" Hermione protests, only stilling when Fleur's hands cover hers. "They're a family heirloom, Fleur, I couldn't possibly..."

"You will. Eet is terribly rude to refuse a gift from a veela. Or a Frenchwoman."

"But you aren't a veela."

"No," Fleur agrees, all too gladly, "lucky for me. Still, I would like you to 'ave zem. Zey were going to waste in my jewelry box."

Her candy arrives. She waits until they are out of earshot of the elves to remark that it wasn't _quite_ what she expected.

"Oh, Fleur," Hermione sighs, rolling her eyes with exasperation and more fondness than Fleur dared to expect, "never change."

In their absence, the Great and the Entrance Halls are empty, save for Peeves in the rafters, who is crooning a Weird Sisters ballad to himself. It's past curfew. Hermione walks Fleur to the front doors and pushes one open, allowing wintry air into the threshold. Snowflakes catch in their hair.

In the moonlight, Hermione's eyes and gifted earrings sparkle like flashbulbs. Details Fleur's catalogued and later ignored pop back into focus.

That awareness of Hermione is finishing its shape now, unraveling the secret like spools of ribbon below the doorway's sprigs of mistletoe, until...

 _Oh_.

Traitorously decoded, Fleur's heart is hammering again.

"Happy Christmas, Fleur," Hermione says, smiling again as she eases Fleur down by the elbow, as is her wont. This time, she presses a kiss to Fleur's cheek instead of confiding a secret in her ear, leaving Fleur with a giddiness like Roger's and no desire to laugh. No, she wants... _wants_ —

"Joyeux Noël, 'Ermione," Fleur murmurs, thoughts at last tellingly and terrifying clear, and flees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...10,000 words later, here is my apology for another delay between updates. Thank you so much for your patience and understanding as I chip away at a Herculean labor of love. This chapter was the last filler-like jump I needed before I shake things up and introduce a subplot that will be a little too spoilery in the Archive's tags, so I'm holding off on adding any additional ones for now. We're finally getting somewhere with the plot, so I hope it was enjoyed. See you at the next update!


	8. Chapter 8

Much to Fleur's chagrin, Boxing Day provides no opportunities for the rest she so desperately wanted after the Yule Ball.

Instead, the source of her _unrest_ asks to meet in the Shrieking Shack... _at seven in the morning_. In the end, Fleur is not pleased, though her complaints are begrudgingly swallowed thanks to Hermione's foresight to bring both a cafetière and a desire to practice the Refilling Charm.

"Is zis a custom in Britain?" Fleur must ask, grumpy. "Waking one anuzzer at an ungodly 'our after a 'oliday?"

Topping off the cup thrust in her direction after a mutter and a flick of her wand, Hermione shakes her head.

"Not quite, but you and I needed to talk."

"Regarding...?"

Neither weary nor wicked, rest was elusive for Fleur in the hours following the festivities. Try as she might, her mind wouldn't shut down, and in the brief reprieve between the Ball and this meeting, she had glared up at the ceiling of her bedroom, fruitlessly seeking answers different than the ones she already knew. In a better humor, Fleur would've smiled at so much thinking, shaken her head, and compared herself to Hermione, but—

 _Best not_ , she mused again and again, struggling to keep her thoughts from wandering in that direction. In _Hermione's_ direction. In her mind, Fleur tied imaginary bows and braids, as if her thoughts were a ship moored on a stormy sea. She built hedges, trapping her discovery in the middle of a maze. She cloaked the musings in a fog, hiding, hiding...at least until Hermione crossed her mind, by chance or by coincidence, and at once, the fastenings would unravel. Each time, Fleur was back to where she began, in a bad mood, brooding over an _infatuation_ that _wouldn't_ disappear.

But each time, tossing and turning, she wondered what exactly it was she was so afraid of.

Fleur had pulled at those threads all night, poring over everything. Curse-Breaking required the same discipline, the same thoroughness. While Aurors trailed Dark wizards for days, piecing together clues of their whereabouts like Muggle inspectors with leads, Curse-Breakers did all that and more, because most curses emerged from a state of mind that was not happy, not content with their lot, and certainly wicked and weary. Curse-Breakers had to track down the casters as well, where Fleur wondered why _any_ wizard would be weary or wicked when they lived in a world of magic and possibility, but the longer she stayed in England and saw the forces of You-Know-Who gathering strength, the more obvious the answer became: some people just wanted _more_. More of this, more of that, more of life, more of wealth, or what have you. It was innate, that wanting.

Now it is Fleur who wants more, but first she must follow her own wending logic, one painstaking footfall after another.

When did it start? Fleur didn't know. She had the who, a what, and the where. She even had the why, and it was that question poised to rip the secret to shreds, because ascertaining why—why she, Fleur, liked Hermione more than she had ever thought or wanted—was so easy. Rather, Fleur moped, the question ought to be changed. It was not a why, but a why not. Why not like Hermione Granger, who was at times so passionate that she put all of her peers to shame? Why _not_ Hermione, who hardly ever hesitated to speak her mind, who made a point to recognize house-elves by name, who did whatever she could to get her way, whether it be jumping backward in time or browbeating a bully into submission? Why _not_?

That was a compelling question, so compelling that Fleur wasted a long while reimagining that mistletoe kiss before she came to her senses.

In the present, Hermione marks her place and sets a biography on Zygmunt Budge aside.

"Our progress so far, and the Tournament! Can't leave those late, can we?"

Luckily for Fleur, a number of other reasons existed for the why not question, and she was all too happy to oblige them. By sunrise, after hours of stewing sleeplessly over the problem, she had a new plan, albeit one less grander than the likes of which she supported lately. For the rest of the year, Fleur'll do what anyone with common sense would do in her shoes: she was going to put her head in the sand and wait for it to go away.

As usual, Hermione appears all but immune to tiredness, and barrels right onto business.

"...know you want to get to the graveyard, but _how_?" Hermione asks, assailing the logistical problems of Fleur's idea as if she's been dying to for weeks. "You won't be able to Apparate from inside the maze, and Harry will get the Cup if we're still...you know," she whispers, unable to verbalize what Fleur's come to think of as a death march for Harry, despite his escape. "We can't call the Knight Bus or Floo anywhere, and with a Portkey—"

"Zen I must make myself a Portkey."

Crookshanks and Hermione seem to wear the same incredulous expression. " _Make_ a Portkey? Do you know how?"

"I shall take a leaf from your book," says Fleur, "and read."

"I _highly_ doubt the library will have anything about that."

"Not even in ze Restricted Section?"

While Hermione pauses, impeded by the possibility, Fleur busies herself with a fresh cup of coffee.

"Fine, you can try making a Portkey, but we should test it a few times before the Third Task, just to be safe."

"Fine."

"You should be able to carry it on your person," Hermione muses, airing another problem after one moment and crafting its solution in the next, more or less talking to herself. Fleur listens closely. "Like the stolen wands, and the box with your grandmother's earrings...it ought to be inconspicuous, or they'll confiscate it and name you a cheater...and _I_ for one don't want to find out what happens to a disqualified champion..."

"Anuzzer piece of jewelry?" Fleur suggests, sidestepping that grim prospect. Cheating is one thing, getting caught is another. "I 'ave many options."

"Let's sort that detail out later." Hermione shakes her head again. "Transfiguring the object will be the easiest part, I'm afraid."

Transportation and transfiguration, regrettably, do become their simplest quandaries.

"You can't be seen," Hermione reminds Fleur, pacing the parlor and wringing her hands, "by anyone. They'll kill you just like they did Cedric."

"I remember. In 'Arry's own words." _Kill the spare._ She and Bill spent an afternoon discussing _The Quibbler_ interview, debating what they would've done or felt. After her first true glimpse of war in the Department of Mysteries, well...Fleur can't say she would've done any better than Cedric had.

"What were you thinking to do?"

"Anuzzer Disillusionment Charm should keep me 'idden. With ze graves, I will not be spotted."

"You're forgetting Nagini..."

"Zen I will watch out for her," Fleur answers, starting to feel annoyed. "Zis snake is no dragon. I shall bewitch her to sleep."

Looking dubious, Hermione lets that go, marshaling the next volley at the speed of light. Fleur lowers her cup, keen to keep pace. "Let's talk about your performance in the Second Task. You _are_ going to lose again, aren't you? That's the only way to determine the order of entry into the maze."

"I cannot very well _ask_ ze grindylows to attack me again, 'Ermione, but yes, I will try. I will cut myself to ribbons if I must."

 _Not happily_. This was a task Fleur hated for many reasons. In the cold, in the dark, it won't be a game to her. It will be _real_.

"You needn't be so drastic—" Hermione tries, abashed.

"Ze ozzer world _still_ exists, 'Ermione," Fleur adds, talking a bit louder to discourage interruptions, "with zat 'Arry and zat Gabrielle. I do not forget my debts." Two Gabrielles, done and due to be saved by a pair of Harry Potters. The prospect sits strangely with Fleur. Are Harry's deeds as noble and true if she and Hermione manipulate the conditions behind the scenes and pull at strings? After a moment's thought, Fleur decides they are.

Following a pause spent checking their tempers, the talks continue and jump ahead.

"Then," Hermione prompts, "Voldemort returns. You—and maybe Cedric—are nearby. How do you get close enough to Harry to escape?"

"We run."

Hermione is quick to conjure up another worry.

"Say you do let Harry get the Cup..." Her brow furrows. "Crouch has Imperiused Viktor, and Cedric is a...wild card, if you will. That doesn't leave you with a lot of time to get to the graveyard if you're avoiding all three of them. You'll need a whole lot of luck to pull this off...to pull _everything_ off."

"Yes." They share a sigh. "And Crouch will still try to remove me whezzer or not I am successful."

"So we find a spell for that, too." Hermione combs through the pile of books, bushy hair spilling into her eyes. "A way for you to know where he is on his patrol of the maze...perhaps a spell...?" Fleur watches the rest of the process without catching another word, far too absorbed in her study.

The new plan is not going well.

In the lull, she changes the subject, desperate for a break from both dilemmas sooner than she expected. "Tell me of your progress," Fleur orders now, clearing her throat. Amidst the ups and downs surrounding the Yule Ball, they haven't had a session in almost a week. "Did you practice?"

"Some," Hermione admits, sounding reluctant to confess to anything less than her typically stellar work, "but I'm having a bit of...trouble."

"What troubles you?" Fleur asks, standing. Hermione follows. They share these, too: a liking to solve problems, a liking of their lessons.

"My focus. _And_ not saying the spells aloud. It's difficult...and bloody tempting," Hermione adds, frowning.

In the face of such entertaining disappointment, Fleur does her best to look stern. "You are still mouthing ze words?"

"Of course I am! That's how I was taught. I can't just throw that away, Fleur. It takes time to learn." Hermione pauses, dismayed. "Even for me."

Fleur is smiling in her approach, and, unable to help herself, already reaching for Hermione and clapping a hand over her mouth. "I could cast _Oscausi_ on you," Fleur supposes. Hermione gazes back at her, eyes narrowing. "You would 'ave _no_ problem casting nonverbal spells after zat..."

"Very funny," Hermione says, voice muffled.

"Unfortunately, 'Ermione, we cannot proceed until zis wall is felled." Fleur lets go and steps back. "Try again. Close your eyes. I will direct you."

"We _should_ be hammering out the details of our next move," Hermione chides, although this point is mumbled rather feebly.

"But eet is so 'bloody tempting' to try zis, is eet not?"

"It is." Another concession, delivered behind a rueful sigh. "We're going back to the other thing later, all right? It's important."

"Of course," Fleur assures, pressing her advantage. "After zis, and our lunch. I see no purpose in plotting on an empty stomach. C'est impossible."

"You're moving the goalposts..." Hermione protests, lips twitching. Tension leaves her shoulders in waves, pleasing Fleur.

"Zat I am. Let us begin."

* * *

Midday comes and goes without any significant progress made, perturbing both parties. Hermione, oddly enough, cannot stay focused.

Nor can Fleur, for different reasons.

When they join the boys along the Gryffindor benches, Harry and Ron are already tucking into their meal. Tensions are also eased here, Fleur observes, watching Ron and Hermione from the corner of her eye as they greet each other like diplomats and act as if the Ball never happened.

"Did you enjoy the dance, Fleur?" Harry asks between bites. Hermione disappears behind a copy of the _Daily Prophet_.

"Not as much as I 'oped, save for ze end."

"Neither did we," Ron says, forgetting his usual fluster and Fleur's past hostility. "My brother went _on_ and _on_ about the Ministry with Bagman..."

"You 'ave more brothers zan ze twins?" Fleur asks, feigning ignorance. Seated on Ron's other side, Ginny snorts.

"Three. Bill, Charlie, and Percy. Percy was the one at your table, filling in for Mr. Crouch. Talked your ears off, I bet..."

"And where is Meester Crouch?" Fleur asks to maintain appearances, thinking of the curt little man who haunted the proceedings of her exchange.

"On leave," Harry says, sliding an empty plate toward Fleur. "He's still sending letters to Percy. There's a bug going around, I reckon."

"A 'bug'?"

"Ginny was just telling us a friend of hers is probably sick," Harry explains. "Luna Lovegood. Another disappearing act. Maybe she caught a cold?"

"We don't get ill like Muggles," Ron interrupts, devouring his third bridie. "Anyway, if she's _really_ unwell, it'd be, I dunno, dragon pox."

Luna certainly didn't have dragon pox at the Ministry... "And Madam Pomfrey?" Fleur questions, actually confused now. "Can't she 'elp?"

"Probably, yeah."

"I'm going to the Hospital Wing to check," Ginny says, peering past Fleur to the Ravenclaws, "but nobody's seen Luna. I'm starting to worry."

"Isn't this the girl that wanders off all the time?" Ron muses, spoon stock-still as he contemplates a fourth helping. "Loony Lovegood? Sleepwalks without shoes? Lives near us, somewhere in the mountains? Seamus was going on about her in Divination last month, you should've heard him."

"Don't call her that, Ron." Taking care to box him about the ears, Ginny departs. Ron yelps.

"Serves you right, mate," Harry says.

"It does not!" Ron protests. "She's scary now! And Loony isn't even here to get offended, so it's no harm, no foul."

Just then, Hermione causes a slight diversion by spraying the newspaper with pumpkin juice.

" _Scourgify_!" Harry says hastily, drawing his wand in a flash to get rid of the mess. "What's the matter, Hermione?"

Hermione slaps the paper down. Fleur and Harry crowd close to see, half rising from their seats to see what Ron is already scanning through.

**_BETTY'S BLIND ITEMS: A NEW COLUMN_ **

_It is the Daily Prophet's pleasure to welcome Betty Braithwaite, our newest gossip columnist and special correspondent. With dear Rita hard at work on her newest biography, Mrs. Braithwaite has been selected by lottery to fill in...with a special twist. Heard something juicy lately? Got a scoop? Readers are now **strongly** encouraged to send **anything of note** by owl for Betty to review, which it just may make our latest edition. Stay tuned!_

"Zis does not look promising," Fleur says.

"Definitely not," Harry agrees.

Glancing sideways, Ron quails at the sight of Hermione's wordless rage. Fleur opts to keep reading.

**_A ROUÉ(N) ROMP AND NOËL NO-NO!_ **

_Readers, you heard it here first, writes Betty Braithwaite_ , Guest Correspondent. _This Triwizard Tournament is the most exciting one yet! While one champion got a goodnight kiss, another played wallflower and sulked the night away. Another champion meet their beau in the garden for a little charmwork and wandwork, only for said beau to botch the whole thing up like a bad potion! Our last champion, the pouty and devil-may-care_ —

"Zis is so pedestrian," Fleur complains. And if she is not mistaken, it also _stinks_ of Skeeter.

"Why does she mean by 'sulked the night away'?" Harry demands. "I danced!"

"Oh, is that one you?" Ron frowns at the page. "I thought—"

"We need to speak in private," Hermione bursts out, eyes blazing.

"Us?" Ron asks nervously as Hermione jumps to her feet and storms away, cursing under breath.

"Just myself, Ronald," Fleur answers, sighing in recognition of her cue and gathering her things. "Au revoir."

" _Now_ do you think they get scary as they get older?" Ron demands of Harry just before Fleur is out of earshot.

When she reaches the Stone Circle, Hermione's anger is at its boiling point. The newspaper crinkles in her grip, distressing the photographs.

"I can't believe her!"

"Ze beetle 'as become a spider. She 'as eyes everywhere now, don't you see?"

"Of course I see! That bloody witch tricked me!"

"You tricked her first. Did you not expect a retaliation?" At least, Fleur didn't.

"No!" Hermione kicks a stone with her shoe, bristling. "Last time—she—this _didn't_ happen!"

"When did you trap her?" Fleur asks. "Ze last time?"

"June. After the Tournament."

 _The event horizon_. Fleur tries not to dwell on her research of Muggle physics, but this term sticks. In June, there's no going back. Still, she pushes herself back to the matter at hand, to the here and now, where their actions bring immediate effects, relishing the chance to make bold moves.

"Don't you see, 'Ermione? Ze game is not up!" She extricates the paper from Hermione's grasp and points to a line in Braithwaite's column. "Readers of ze _Prophet_ are encouraged to participate. She 'as made it a sport. A hunting season. Our peers will compete for ze clout of zeir names in print."

"I don't—"

"And Skeeter 'as taken you at your word! Eet is not she 'oo is doing ze writing, eet is Braithwaite, and eet is not you or 'Arry 'oo is discussed."

"Thus, the blind item," Hermione mutters bitterly, crossing her arms. "It's clever, really. She found a loophole better than any barrister, and since she can't go after us, she went for you and the other champions...and this comes after she's insinuated about your love lives to drum up interest..."

"Oh, 'Ermione," Fleur scolds. "Keep up! You are cleverer zan she, zan zem both! Can't you see your opportunity?"

"I am?" Hermione asks in surprise. "I do?"

"Theenk," Fleur says, flicking Hermione's forehead with a finger so that the gears within will turn again, "of ze readers."

Like lightning catching a weathervane, Hermione begins to smile, finally getting it. "Yes, the readers...you're—you're _right_ , Fleur!"

"I am."

Hermione's excitement compels her to pace, overcome with the possibilities. Fleur entertains an image of the columnists besieged with letters.

"This will be so easy! The Slytherins will be buzzing about it, but we can stop them and make up our own stories...oh, we'll send a _dozen_ owls..."

"More," Fleur urges, eagerly.

"A hundred!" Hermione grasps Fleur's gloved hands in her own, delighted. "Let's fight fire with fire. Braithwaite won't know what hit her!"

They set off for the Owlery at once.

"So..." Fleur ventures, calmer now. "Did _you_ enjoy ze Ball?"

Still aglow with triumph, Hermione is slow to respond. "I did! More than the last time, so it must've been the company," she says, beaming.

Fleur ducks her head.

"How was the rest of your evening, by the way?" Hermione asks in a slightly softer voice, undoubtedly remembering the leftovers of Fleur's anger. They have _that_ failing in common as well, Fleur realizes now—a towering temper. "I feel like I barely saw you between all the dancing and the end."

"You read ze paper," says Fleur, sighing again. "I joined Roger in ze garden. Eet did not go well."

"Why?"

"Skeeter—or Braithwaite—'ad eet nearly right. Roger experimented foolishly with a potion. Two potions," Fleur amends.

" _No_!"

Fleur nods, wondering if she ought to have suspected Hermione to be so fiercely retributive on her behalf. Worser still, it is deeply flattering.

"That's ridiculous! A first-year would know better. No wonder he can't keep a girlfriend."

"Roger was lucky I refrained from a curse."

"Lucky..." Hermione agrees, thoughtful. "Right."

They walk in companionable silence the rest of the way to the Owlery, automatically pressing closer together as the wind gusts overhead. They stagger up snow-covered steps and enter the tower where a chorus of hoots and calls greet them from all directions. Fleur sets her bag down, pulls a few extra rolls of parchment and quills from the depths, then splits the supplies in half and passes Hermione her share on the way to a seat.

"I don't know what I should write..."

"Use your imagination," Fleur orders, twirling her quill between her fingers. "Theenk fantastically."

"How about, 'I saw Viktor Krum swimming in the Black Lake'?"

"Swimming naked," Fleur suggests without looking up, busy attending to her own letter.

"Fleur!" Hermione is outraged. "I can't—"

"Eet is not _you_ , 'Ermione, _or_ Viktor, _or_ true, so do not worry so much!"

Bright red, Hermione obediently puts the scandal to paper and seals it, before wondering aloud who she should sign it as.

"Severus Snape."

Hermione's eyes widen.

"Who are _you_ doing?"

"Monsieur Malfoy," Fleur answers, coaxing an owl down. "Zis boy simply must tell Braithwaite about 'is admiration for ze Beauxbatons champion."

After another round, a competition arises, and it's _fun_.

"One champion 'as developed a 'orrible 'abit of sleepwalking..."

"I saw one champion smuggling a fwooper into the castle."

"Anuzzer was spotted releasing doxies onto poor and unsuspecting first-years..."

"Dolores Umbridge expresses concern over how little _misery_ was inflicted in the Tournament—"

"—all champions potentially exposed to a love potion devised by ze late Laverne de Montmorency, details on ze love pentagon to come—"

"Gilderoy Lockhart officially endorses Cedric Diggory..." Hermione carries her newest owl to the window, grinning.

"But can 'e outmatch 'Arry Potter?" Fleur asks, beckoning another to deliver her lie. "Dear 'Arry, who is favored to win by ze Minister of Magic?"

Hermione is torn between alarm and amusement at the thought of Fudge discovering the forgery. "You know how he leans on the _Prophet_..."

"With zis, I guarantee Braithwaite's enterprise to fail," Fleur assures, sweeping into a bow as if that was her intention all along and not a serendipitous whirl of events heartily taken advantage of. She has a feeling this won't be the last time such a thing happens. "De rien!"

Hermione snorts.

They send off another dozen falsehoods and then start back for the castle in considerably higher spirits. Not even the threat of Peeves dampens Fleur's mood. In fact, he falls prey to a spell of Hermione's and smacks face-first into a wall, trying to extricate the gum now stuck up his nose.

"Miss Granger," he curses, shaking his fist, "and Fanny Dellycour! Peevesy knows your little secret! He does!"

"What secret?" Fleur calls after him. "Ze means to be as foul as you?"

Forced to dodge a vase flung from above, Hermione yanks Fleur out of the line of fire and shoves her behind a tapestry.

"Ow!"

"Where did you go?" Peeves demands between huffs and puffs. "Sneaking out of the castle for kisses, girlies? Wait until I tell Professorhead!"

They exchange looks of relief when his voice and the sound of sniffling fades.

"We're on his bad side now," Hermione warns after the coast is clear, stepping out from the tapestry. Fleur follows. "Although..." That telltale _look_ of hers returns, the one that somehow promises both deep thought and unpredictable danger. "Don't you think...well—maybe he has a bit of a point?"

"What point?" Fleur asks, trying not to laugh for Hermione's sake. It's been a long morning. That would be unkind. "Ze merits of being a pest?"

"No." Hermione is still deliberating. "You and I. The narrative." Another odd look appears, making Fleur wary. "Stupid!"

"Excusez-moi?"

"No, I meant me. _I've_ been stupid." Almost in a trance, she looks at the newspaper, then back to Fleur. "I should've thought of it myself..."

"Of _what_?" Fleur asks impatiently.

"Of us! It's brilliant!" Hermione laughs, gleeful. "Rita Skeeter might think she's backed me into a corner, but that— _it_ —" She shakes her head in wonder. "It's so simple, and we're already carrying on in a way...most people will think whatever they want, but I think this may actually work!"

"You 'ave less zan a minute to explain yourself, 'Ermione, or I am going back to bed."

"You and I should pretend to be a couple!"

Has Hermione become a Legilimens in her spare time? Fleur is abruptly panicked.

"Excusez-moi?" Fleur repeats, trying to buy herself some time. Hermione advances. Fleur's back hits a suit of armor.

"Don't you get it? Everyone knows we're 'cozy', and your friends mock you endlessly anyway, so why not lean into the charade? It's ready-made!"

"Why would I do zat?"

Hermione ignores her irritation. "This is _just_ the thing to get everyone invested, I think. Making a friend from another school is all well and good, but it's like you said! We have to get creative and think carefully. Us starting a relationship would really show that old school rivalries are ending."

"You even don't like women, 'Ermione..." Fleur forces an uneasy laugh, hoping that will settle the matter. "Zis is ze opposite of...of caution." 

"What does that have to do with anything?" Hermione asks, almost offended. "That isn't the point! We'd only be _pretending_."

"Neverzeless..."

"But don't you see?" Hermione presses. "It's believable! That's my point. And you're always kissing me anyway—"

"Eet is a custom! Zis is common in France!"

"—since we spend so much time together, it would be the _perfect_ cover—"

" _You_ asked me to be friends," Fleur says, still more loudly.

"—and it'll work with our prank! Braithwaite will be forced to publish everything and look ridiculous. Then the _Prophet_ won't be seen as reliable—"

"But I-I don't _want_ to do zis!"

Hermione is—unusually—confused.

"What?"

"I don't want to pretend to date you!" Fleur blurts out before she can stop herself. "Did you—did you not theenk of what zis will do to me?"

"Are you afraid of dating someone like me?"

"Eet 'as nothing to do with you!" Fleur snaps, trying to recover her composure. Today's sense of fun is gone. "Eet concerns my...my reputation—"

"Excuse me? Your reputation?" Hermione demands, vacillating between confusion and hurt. "You can't afford to date a Muggle-born? Or a girl?"

Quickly, the _other_ why not reasons begin spilling out of her mouth, jumbled, tangled, and perhaps worse of all, inarticulate.

"Do _not_ presume ze worst of me," Fleur snarls. "You 'ave not 'eard my reasoning, and you promised to listen to me. A relationship with you will destroy my credibility. Do not scoff at me again, 'Ermione!" Fleur stamps her foot. "Enough! I am facing poor odds in ze Tournament. If we 'ave it as you say, ze Tasks will 'appen just ze same way. Not only am I ze loser among ze other champions, I am ze only girl, and most damning of all, I am French! I am older zan you!" Fleur scowls. "Eet is not a matter of being seen with you, or 'aving you on my arm! Eet is a matter of...propriety!"

Hermione sneers. "Propriety, how archaic—"

"Eet still matters in ze wizarding world, 'Ermione!" Fleur could shake her. "Our goal is to destroy old prejudices, not stir zem up again! If you and I walked ze 'alls together, zey will only see the _philandering_ French champion taking _advantage_ , and ze entire plan is ruined! Do you understand?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't." Hermione is cold. "The only way to get rid of prejudice and bias is to face it head on and bring opposing groups together."

"You ask too much of me! 'Ow can I possibly support 'Arry in June when I am torn to shreds in your papers?" Fleur exclaims. "Look at zis Braithwaite woman. She 'as eyes and ears everywhere. Zis 'romp' rumor is just ze beginning. What will zey say to discredit me when I kiss you in ze corridors?"

"We already sent material to Braithwaite! This isn't _any_ different!"

"Eet is!" Fleur's shout ricochets, making the nearby portraits cower. "We meant to overwhelm ze _Prophet_ , not offer a scoop!" She's fuming. Why must Hermione complicate every problem beyond recognition when it falls into her lap? " _No_ , 'Ermione, I will not be your girlfriend, pretend _or_ ozzerwise."

"AHA!"

A familiar apparition leaps out from within a suit of armor.

"I knew it! Fanny lurves Gangly Granger! Fanny lurves Granger—and her fickle fanny! HAHA!"

Screaming the absurdity at the top of his lungs, Peeves whirls out of sight, cackling.

"Now look what you've done," Fleur hisses, rounding on Hermione.

Hermione's chagrin folds back into anger, suffusing her features with heat.

"If all you care about is your image, then I can't help you." Disgust has made its way onto the face Fleur's become so fond of. "Harry's was torn to shreds for a year and he still kept his chin up. Professor Dumbledore lost more prestigious titles and awards than anyone will ever see in a lifetime and he managed to get over it. If you're so concerned about what people _say_ about you," she adds, "then you're not the person I thought you were."

" _'Ermione_..." Fleur trails off, aghast and indignant. That wasn't it at all! "Zis is not just a bit of fun—please, you must consider ze consequences of—"

"I'll see you later," Hermione interrupts, edging away, like she can't bear to look at Fleur a second longer. "If you can _stomach_ it, that is."

* * *

In the ensuing days, Fleur steers clear of the castle.

It doesn't take long for Peeves's handiwork—after its speedy decoding—to make waves. With nothing to do but homework, little else circulates.

Fleur, meanwhile, only sulks.

It's often said that absence only makes the heart grow fonder, but her heart was already fond, already enamored, so their distance is simply irritating. It makes her angry. It's _all_ Hermione's fault, Fleur decides, seething, spiteful, and simmering like a kettle on a stove. This was Hermione's arrogance, Hermione's doing, Hermione's _hypocrisy_ that pushed them so far apart, didn't she know that yet? Why didn't she _understand_ that yet?

Why, indeed.

Well, Fleur wasn't going to explain a thing to her. If Hermione was so smart, so adept, perhaps she'll figure all of this out on her own without—without Fleur communicating anything she felt or thought to her, like both always promised to do at dire straits, as a sign of real friendship...

Fleur's stomach gives a furious, guilty squirm. This doesn't _count_ , Fleur tells herself, unwilling to examine her own silence.

Edgar plops down beside Fleur after Isabeau leaves, having laughingly quizzed her on the matter. Céline joins them at the end of the bed.

"Are you—?"

"Fine," Fleur interrupts, turning a page of _Hogwarts, A History_. Edgar clears his throat.

"And Hermione?"

"We haven't spoken." Fleur didn't even budge when a very confused Ginny acted as an intermediary, asking for a minute to talk.

"Did you have a fight?" Edgar prods.

 _Our first real fight_. The first left unresolved, with so many misunderstandings, big and small...and it is far greater than a difference of opinion.

"In a manner of speaking."

"What kind of manner?" Céline asks patiently.

"I...I don't want to talk about it." It's not very fair of her to give them so little to work with, but she couldn't unravel it all if she tried. She doesn't know how. Fleur cannot say which way is up when it comes to Hermione, or the ever perplexing mess that has become their flight back in time.

In the present, Edgar drapes an arm over Fleur's shoulders.

"Well..." Céline trails off. "Come with us to the village tonight? Take your mind off things?"

After some consideration, Fleur relents, glad to push a schoolgirl crush and a schoolgirl's plot out of her mind. "Where are we going?"

"The Three Broomsticks," Céline suggests.

"The Hog's Head," Edgar counters. "There's less people, and it's cheap!"

With Fleur as the deciding vote, she casts it for Edgar. Céline is disappointed.

"You're buying the first round," she informs Edgar as Fleur gets ready. "We aren't drinking wine. I would not even feed that swill to the Abraxans."

"You're such a snob," Edgar accuses, catching Perenelle by the tail before she can claw at Céline in his defense. "Not all of us grow up on vineyards!"

Content to let this familiar bickering drown out her thoughts, Fleur follows the pair out of the carriage and onto the path to Hogsmeade, listening.

"...only stating the obvious, which is to say that _I_ have a refined palate as the daughter of sommeliers, and you don't!"

"Are you going to be quite so modest when you win awards for your stage performances, or should I give you some advice now?"

When the trio reaches Hog's Head Inn, there are only a handful of other patrons, all hooded and deep in conversation. 

The bartender eyes them suspiciously, but pours three glasses of Dragon Barrel Brandy and slides each one down the bar.

"Bah," Céline mumbles after the second round, smacking her lips. "That is strong."

After the third round, Fleur, significantly cheered up, changes the order to Blishen's Firewhiskey.

"Merlin," Edgar groans, eyes streaming, "they should...change the name of this. It's _wildfire_ whiskey."

They laugh at him.

"So," Céline says after another drink, resting her chin on her palm, "are you _ever_ going to tell us what's going on?"

Edgar hiccups, nodding. Fleur toys with her glass.

"You've been a little...distant, that's all," Céline explains, a little more knowing than Fleur would ordinarily like, "as if you're not even here."

"I don't mean to be," Fleur admits, "but I'm sorry if I...seemed to push either of you away. It's only—"

"The pressure," Edgar says, "of the Tournament?"

"Yes," Fleur agrees, jumping at the excuse. It is true, at least in part. "I want to do Beauxbatons proud. You understand."

But they _don't_. There are too many layers, too many lies, between her and them. She is still something of a stranger in her own life.

"And..." Céline speaks now as if she's addressing an unhappy hippogriff, eyes rather sharp. "Dating Hermione?"

"We aren't dating."

 _Yet_ , Fleur's mind supplies, as if the idea is an inevitability. 

"Are you afraid to?" Edgar asks.

"Yes," Fleur lies and not lies, trying to wriggle out of this as quickly as possible.

"You shouldn't be," Céline insists, covering Fleur's hand with her own and provoking new guilty squirm. "It'll work out in the end. Trust me."

Fleur buys the last round. She leaves a tip for the bartender as Céline and Edgar stagger out, harmonizing a Spellbound song. Trailing behind, she tells them to go on ahead after they pass through the gates, wanting to be alone. With sloppy kisses to her cheek, Céline and Edgar totter back to the carriage, holding notes and laughing uproariously. Fleur turns on her heel and starts her walk, hoping the fresh air will ease the tipsiness.

She shouldn't be scared, Céline seemed to think, but Fleur _was_ scared. She was—is—scared of failing. They don't have unlimited chances to get this right, they had only _one_. Their time felt shorter every day, as if the minutes were falling apart at the seams. But...she _isn't_ scared of being observed, or even judged, albeit by a jury of their peers thanks to some rag of a newspaper. People have gazed at Fleur all her life and judged every bit of her, too, forever on the hunt for an imperfection or, more frequently, her attention. But had it _appeared_ that way, she wonders, bowing her head as she meanders through the grounds without a particular destination in mind. She hadn't articulated much at all to Hermione, trusting her to understand her point of view without being told, only to grow furious when no common ground was found amid another absurd idea for their future...

Judgment and scrutiny are easy for _Fleur_ to ignore, but not Hermione. Why invite more attention—unnecessarily—if the project depends on secrecy?

And why, Fleur wonders, frustrated, should either entertain another ruse, another idea, that will only make their job so much _harder_?

Fleur drags a hand down her face. Of all partners to be stuck with, it has to be Hermione Granger, who behaves like the trick stairs of her beloved school or like the depths of a murky ocean, hiding her convictions in one moment and proudly putting all of them on display in the next—

Wait.

She startles. At the edge of the wood, there is a flash of silver. Silver hair, she sees clearly, and black wings, less clearly. Fleur squints, heart hammering. _Is that..._? She picks out shapes in the gloom, nearing all the while. Thestrals, a whole herd...and Fleur's never seen them before.

She pursues the silver-haired figure, for a moment thinking her to be Gaby, sneaking away from a lesson.

"Eet is dangerous to be out at zis 'our," she calls, confused and relieved to find Luna Lovegood at the outskirts of the forest, shoeless and alone.

"The herd can protect me. They're no more evil than I am." Luna pockets a scrying mirror, smiling. "And I saw you coming."

Fleur rubs her eyes, trying to clear the blurred edges of her vision, unsteadier than she intended. The Blishen is making her feel wistful, too, warping annoyance and anger and hurt toward Hermione into a melancholy that's trailed her since the fateful leap into living time. "You did?"

"Oh yes. Very insistently."

Fleur joins Luna and offers her hand. As the foal sniffs it, Fleur relaxes. _Why, they're no more different than Abraxans..._

"You can see them, can't you?" Luna observes, glancing sideways. "I'm sorry."

Fleur looks back, calm vanishing. Neville Longbottom is dead in one world and breathes obliviously in another. It's a stark, horrifying discovery. "So am I," she mumbles, "for you." Here lies further proof of another place, another impossible feat of magic, and she can't share it with anyone else.

After a few minutes, Luna breaks the silence.

"A Galleon for your thoughts?"

Fleur's words are out of her mouth before she stop herself, tongue loosened by the drinks. "I weesh to do something. For right and wrong reasons."

Maybe it _is_ inevitable that she would come around to Hermione's reasoning, but Fleur wants...a third opinion, for her own sake.

"Oh? Why are they wrong?"

Fleur purses her lips. "Eet is deceitful."

"Deceitful to whom?"

To Hermione, for a start.

"A friend. Many friends."

"So you are lying to your friends," Luna surmises. "Why?"

"To protect them," Fleur explains, thinking of the vows made in service to others. She thinks of Luna, then and now, with no idea what's to come.

"Then is it so bad?" Luna asks. "It's only a _little_ lie. No bigger than a wrackspurt, truly?"

At another loss, she shrugs. The lie are not very little, the farce is much too big, and Fleur herself is less than enthused to keep it all up, and yet...

"Is it so wrong to lie to protect a friend?" Luna muses. "I would do that for my friends, if I had any."

"Perhaps you and I could be friends," she says, feeling more generous than usual. This, too, she blames on the drinks.

"We could?" Luna asks, so promptly buoyant and Gaby-like that Fleur has to smile, despite her queasiness. They shake hands.

"Of course. Join 'Ermione and I for breakfast," she offers, insides twisting. This is, for now, an empty promise. "You won't 'ave to go very far."

"Are you sure?" Luna asks over the noise of the thestrals rumbling. "I've seen wrackspurts bounce off her ears in the corridors with my Spectrespecs, you know. They don't seem to like her much. Not many people do, either," she adds, stroking the stringy mane of the foal.

"Why not?" Fleur asks, trying not to drum up the answer to that question herself.

"She doesn't seem very nice. From what I hear."

Unsure of what to say, Fleur is silent. That's the part and parcel of Hermione Granger; she is a paradox herself, rife with contradictions.

"She stands out, though, don't you think? Like you."

"I do," Fleur admits, stifling a sigh. That kept _her_ enthralled, certainly... "You are as wise as my grandmuzzer, Luna."

"I started Divination this year, so I don't know if it's wisdom or my Inner Eye seeing things. Maybe the latter, because I made a prophecy in class and Professor Trelawney told me I should wait out here until it came true..." While Fleur digests the mystery of Luna's absence, Luna changes the subject. "Is it true your grandmother is a veela?" Luna asks. "I've always wanted to meet a veela. Veela are the cousins of heliopaths, did you know?"

"I—what?"

"Heliopaths. They're spirits of fire that burn everything in their path. The veela can wield fire, can't they?"

"Yes," Fleur answers, wishing she didn't feel so foggy. Perhaps Luna's comments would not swim quite so oddly in her brain. She tries to get them back on track. "But I would be pleased to introduce you. And to my sister," she adds on an impulse. "Gaby is very eenterested in Magizoology."

"Perhaps she would enjoy a subscription to _The Quibbler_? Daddy tries to stay at the forefront of Magizoology, so we print everything we hear."

"Everything you hear?" Fleur repeats, curious. "Even ze lies?"

"It isn't a lie until proven untrue," Luna explains, glancing over her shoulder at the whickering mare. The foal returns to its mother, joining the herd in their huddle of shadows. "Crumple-Horned Snorkacks haven't been documented by wizards yet, of course, but they do exist! They're in Sweden somewhere, you see, but I think they simply like to go on holidays sometimes, like we do, or visit the Short-Snouts. There's a distant relation."

This is a ridiculous conversation in a chapter of Fleur's rather ridiculous life, but she lets it slide.

"I am sure my seester would find your paper quite...compelling."

After a minute, Luna returns her gaze to Fleur. "May I give you some advice? Friend to friend?"

"You may," says Fleur, smiling back. Things don't feel so fraught with Luna. Maybe that was why Harry brought her along to London.

"It's easier to beg for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission," Luna says, turning as Fleur does as the thestrals rustle closer together, grumbling and flicking their tails. "Not better, really, but that's a matter of opinion. So I say, tell your little lie," she adds, thoughtful, "and do whatever you must to protect your friends. If they are your friends, they will try to understand why you did whatever you did...deceitfully."

Fleur considers the advice as she and Luna part ways, feeling the last vestiges of her resolve beginning to crumble.

* * *

As the Beauxbatons carriage holds a soiree commemorating the start of the new year, Fleur stays in her bedroom, declining all company.

At some ungodly hour of the following morning, however, Céline wakes Fleur, looking adamant.

"Come with me?" She pleads as Fleur struggles to gain alertness. "I need to discuss my grade. An Acceptable in Defense isn't acceptable to me."

"This couldn't wait until—eight?" Fleur croaks. " _Or_ the start of the term?"

Céline steals the blankets off Fleur's bed. "No! Pip, pip, as the English like to say!"

Mutinous, Fleur sidles to the washroom. They find Edgar in the parlor, also roused to join Céline, but he's fallen back to sleep in his chair, dressed in wrinkled clothes and stinking of gillywater. Perenelle drowses in his hair, steam funneling from her snout, as if Edgar was a fire recently put out.

"He gets to sleep and I don't?"

"He was my backup plan," Céline confesses, "but he drank more than I did!"

The sky is still oppressively dark as they hustle up to the castle. Outside of Moody's office in a matter of minutes, Céline knocks on the door.

"It's a shame you missed the party in the greenhouse, by the way," Céline remarks, scanning her report with a wistful look. "I didn't get to tell you too much about it before, but Sacha let us try out one of the new tinctures he was working on all summer. Morgana's skirts, it was wonderful!"

"And what did you see this time? The inside of Morgana's skirts?"

Céline laughs. "No, Giselle explained it to me. It was like those photographs Muggles take of their insides...ah, an x-ray?"

No devotee of Muggle Studies, Fleur is flummoxed.

"I spent the end of the party looking at my hand like it belonged to a skeleton," Céline explains. "Then Edgar and I shared a daydream. You and Hermione showed up with Celestina Warbeck and Herbert Beery. He said my Altheda was _magnificent_." She sighs happily. "Sacha outdid himself!"

"Professor Gautier would not approve." Their Herbology professor was never fond of Sacha's experiments in the palace gardens.

"Who cares what he says?"

Their chatter is interrupted by Crouch's gruff inquiry, seemingly in the same mind as Fleur regarding lie-ins. Céline bounds forward.

"Professor, I'm sorry to disturb you so early—"

"—and myself—" Fleur mutters.

"—but I wanted to discuss my grade, if that's all right?" Céline shows the report. "We have an understanding at Beauxbatons about a dialogue..."

"A dialogue," Crouch repeats, beadily turning Alastor Moody's eye in her direction. Céline recoils.

"Eet is like a salon, sir," Fleur interrupts. "At Beauxbatons, students are free to appeal any grade if zey aren't satisfied with ze outcome."

"I don't know what sort of claptrap you're learning in France, but that isn't _done_ here at Hogwarts."

There's a layer of malice and impatience in his eyes now, shielding a casual cruelty the real Moody lacks. And the _smell_...his master is the source of it, Fleur knows instantly. Its roiling rottenness is so disgusting, it takes all she has not to retch and to stubbornly hold his gaze, waiting, waiting...

He breaks first.

"Miss Moreau, you best make it quick."

Céline bounds inside, looking delighted. Crouch follows, with Fleur at their heels. At the hearth, a fire glows, warming a steaming cup on the mantle. On the desk, a cracked Sneakoscope is balanced on its point, motionless. By contrast, a Secrecy Sensor hums threateningly as the three of them move further into the room, arching closer to Crouch when Céline's back is turned. Fleur, meanwhile, pauses at the desk to examine the shadowy figures moving about in the Foe-Glass. For a few brief and startling moments—Fleur blinks. _No._ She was so sure they were solidifying.

"Now," Crouch grumbles, after he and Céline are seated before the hearth in armchairs, "what makes you think an Acceptable wasn't on the nose?"

"Well, at Beauxbatons..." Céline launches into her argument, letting Fleur study the office more thoroughly.

She does not like being in such cramped quarters with a Death-Eater, disguised or not, and tries to work off this discomfort by wandering around. She keeps her back to them, trying to deflect suspicion. Moody's eye may be following her, and she can't afford to...what? Be observed preparing to take him on? Hermione opposed that choice in their discussions, and Fleur...can't risk it. It's early, she isn't at her best, and she's considering a whim that undermines all that she and Hermione are working toward. She and Céline are at Crouch's mercy, isolated, and outmatched. She tries to imagine the outcome if she tipped her hand here and started casting curses. If Crouch didn't disarm her right away, gifted with a well-known ability to improvise, he would _fight_. Or would he perhaps deescalate the situation, and play upon Fleur's status as an outsider with his own as an insider? Who would _dare_ attack an ex-Auror unless that person had a nefarious purpose? Yes, Fleur muses, pretending to examine the antenna of a Probity Probe, that would work to his advantage. _The nerve of these French graspers_ , Skeeter might've scrawled, had Hermione not tricked her...

"You see, the French are imaginative," Céline is saying now. "Fantastical. Our ways of looking at things are—"

"Catastrophic?" Crouch suggests. "Plagued by delusions of grandeur?"

"Be that as it may," Céline amends, "our scope of Defense Against the Dark Arts is gigantic. Our people suffered greatly in this century, and we armed ourselves accordingly. Grindelwald left a horrible stain, and his counterpart..." Even Fleur knows the horrors associated with his Muggle counterpart. "I did not understand the margins of your lesson, sir. Safeguarding a house against ill-intent needs more than one trick, I thought."

"A Tongue-Tying Curse would deter most intruders from the home, which _was_ the assignment, but..." Crouch seems rapt now. "Could be wrong."

"Do you see?" Céline asks, sounding relieved. "To truly keep something safe, you must outfit its surroundings completely. You prefer the practical approach, professor, you said so yourself. One defensive maneuver will be overcome eventually. It is—it is _practical_ to incorporate many defensive ploys. Take our Ministries. We share Anti-Disapparition Jinxes, but did you know that the French premises are guarded by a cluster of matagots?"

"Quite the trick. Does your lot favor..." The discussion continues. Unlike Fleur and Hermione's debates, though, it never reaches a fever pitch.

Hermione and her tricks, Fleur thinks now, softening a bit at the thought. Hermione and her schemes. Try as she might, Fleur cannot stop thinking about the latest one. What would changing the pretense do for anyone? She ponders the idea again. _Plenty_ , a voice not unlike Hermione's whispers in the back of her mind, planting goosebumps along Fleur's neck. _Wouldn't you do so much more for a lover than you would do for a mere friend_?

But Hermione and Fleur had done all that and more for their friends, so what was going through her head, besides some petty revenge against Skeeter? Crouch would _still_ be an enemy—Harry's enemy and working against him all the time, which made him Ron's as well as Hermione's...

 _Hermione this, Hermione that_. Forget the runespoor metaphor; her thoughts of Hermione always spin out in a dozen directions, not three.

Below the window, the bewitched trunk rattles and groans.

Fleur flinches at the noise and glances away, only to chase a specter that has caught her attention in the corner of her eye. She saw...she _sees_...Harry, Ron, and Hermione, in the Foe-Glass, clear as reflections in a mirror and as ill-tempered as their photographs in the _Prophet_. Fleur gapes. She spies Dumbledore and McGonagall, Snape, Mr. Crouch, even Alastor Moody himself...before the images return again to the trio. Facing a fabrication of Hermione's real glare, Fleur does the first thing that comes to mind, breath catching as her fingertips touch the cool glass surface.

 _Confundo_.

She'd overlooked something. In Fleur's haste to save Sirius and the boys, she'd forgotten someone. A rather _important_ someone.

What if Crouch saw Ron and Hermione again in the mirror? What if he changed his mind and deemed them a threat to him after all?

What is she so afraid of? Being observed? No. Being judged? Hardly. Getting hurt? Fleur can handle the hurt! She handled it after Cedric and Cerberus and every loss in the Department of Mysteries. She undid it all and succesfully kept the worst of the pain to herself. What she can't handle, she knows now, is the possibility, however small, of _Hermione_ getting hurt. Or worse, Fleur can't help but think, heart pounding as she remembers how near Hermione and Neville were to one another when the Death Eaters' spells met their marks. Can Fleur do this? Can she stray even closer to Hermione and act as her shield? That might be necessary after all, she thinks, trying to calm her breathing. That _would_ excuse their discussions as the closest of confidences and these fights as lovers' quarrels. That _would_ show anyone—everyone, especially Barty Crouch Junior, a man with a talent for working toward his goals without attracting notice—that they are a team, that you couldn't get to one without facing the other.

In a flash, the images fade. The glass whirls with intangible smoke, like the core of a crystal ball. A temporary fix, truly, but a fix all the same.

Perhaps she should take Céline's advice too and outfit the defenses surrounding their plan by covering their tracks. It _is_ practical, Fleur tells herself, even as a sliver of fear crawls up her spine, but will the ends justify the means? Is it appropriate to do the wrong thing for the right reasons?

"...hoped you would come around," Céline gushes. "Right, Fleur?"

"Yes," Fleur lies, pretending to fix her hair in the mirror to regain her bearings. "But I would've seen zat at noon, or ze start of spring term."

"Agreed," Crouch growls, but he sounds approving as he looks to Céline. "I'll change the mark, Moreau. You'll get your Outstanding."

Céline jumps to her feet, ecstatic. " _Merci beaucoup_! I knew you would understand. The Brits are Frenchmen at heart, you know!"

Crouch ushers them to the door, gruff and disbelieving again. In spite of herself and the lingering unease, Fleur can't quite blame him. "Says who?"

"That Muggle king! William the Conqueror," Céline insists as she and Fleur step into the corridor. "England was never the same after—"

The door slams shut.

"I shall quit while I'm ahead," Céline proclaims, and holds her paper aloft like a victory flag all the way to breakfast, deaf to Fleur's many protests.

* * *

After so much thinking, drinking, and shrinking from the important job she vowed to complete, there is only one thing Fleur can do now.

She locates Hermione in the Entrance Hall later that evening, standing alone in the torchlight while the rest of the schools eat supper just beyond the double doors of the Great Hall. Hermione appears to have dawdled, apparently waiting for Fleur so they may be seen walking in together despite not speaking for days. As always, there is a book tucked under her arm and a pensive look on her face. Half afraid her outbursts erased the leaps and bounds made together toward a real friendship, Fleur studies Hermione's expression from her place along the balustrade until the last of her indecision has withered away and resolve has taken its place. Finally, Fleur descends the stairs, the click of heels announcing her approach.

"I've been thinking," Hermione greets without prompting, tightening her grip on the book and staring past Fleur's ear, "about another plan."

 _Another_ plan? Fleur isn't deterred, though, and simply waits.

"You said something about Roger the other day that I couldn't get out of my head," says Hermione, shifting her weight from foot to foot and still not looking at Fleur. For once, her businesslike attitude is wavering. Unlike Fleur, she's nervous. "About luck. It might help you in the Tournament."

Fleur says nothing.

Something in Hermione softens in reply, making worry dart across her features.

"Fleur? Are you listening to me?"

"I would rather to do zis one." Cupping Hermione's face, Fleur swoops down to kiss her.

Somehow it is better than she imagined, and she imagined quite a bit. Braver and more experienced than Fleur anticipated, it takes no time at all for Hermione to kiss her back and pull at Fleur's robes, bringing her closer and into the light. The idea of fizzy drinks comes to mind again as the kiss deepens. Fleur's nerves simmer below the surface, threatening the cool veneer of strength she's worked hard to create like a jinx spinning out of control. When they part for breath, Fleur fights a maddening impulse to press forward again and instead stays close, keeping up the charade.

Somehow Hermione's blush bolsters Fleur's confidence to a swift, swaggering calm.

"I am sorry," she says, opting to speak in code in the likelihood of her voice carrying. For once, the deceit gives Fleur no pause. "For my...words."

"It wasn't your fault! _I'm_ sorry. I bulldozed that—that _judgment_ —on you without us discussing it beforehand—"

"Not all your ideas are brilliant," Fleur says warningly, mindful of the murmuring in the Great Hall, "but zis one shows...promise."

 _Promise, indeed_. What Fleur failed to consider is Hermione taking her advice to heart. Not even she dared to think so far out of the box.

Though, hadn't she done the same by not underestimating Crouch? Perhaps later, in a better humor, she would let Hermione in on the joke.

"Still..." Hermione clutches the book closer, looking guilty. Fleur crowds nearer to skate her fingers soothingly along Hermione's cheek.

"Anuzzer time," she whispers, feigning the intimacy she wants now that they have an audience. "What did you weesh to tell me?"

Forgetting her self-reproach, Hermione allows herself a conspiratorial smile. In the hall's flickering firelight, her eyes are dancing.

"I figured it out. I know how to get you through the maze."

With Hermione, the possibilities for mayhem and mischief and mystery are endless. With her, Fleur will never be bored.

"We just, erm, need to break a few dozen rules..."

"Oh, a few more?" Fleur teases. They're both eager to act boldly, it seems.

Hermione laughs and ducks her head, helping matters significantly. This inquiry may very well be mistaken for flirtation, if they are lucky.

"Come with me," she says warmly, offering her hand. Fleur takes it, less and less concerned about hows and whys of being here. So be it, Fleur is here and no longer able to let the dust settle. There's enough to consider, namely, where to next place her feet. The Tasks. Harry. Cedric. You-Know Who. The Time-Turner. Hermione's safety. "Let's discuss how your next shot at the Third Task will go from ordinary to _extraordinary_..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long chapter as an apology for the lack of an update! Rest assured, I was working on it for _months_. I wanted to post what little I had in November after a torturous week of work anxiety and election stress, but as you know, the stress kept going and going until the January inauguration came along, lifted my spirits, and propelled me to finish. 
> 
> Anyway, it took me _forever_ , but we finally reached the leg of the story I was so impatient for—fake dating! Hopefully, Fleur's turnaround was believable. I didn't want her to agree with Hermione right away and doubted it would be easy for her to do with her crush, so I dragged it out a ways. Sorry! Now that it's all set up, I can have some fun developing it. :)
> 
> Thank you again for all your patience. Hopefully, the update was enjoyable!


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